Trying to Contain Rays of Obnoxious Brightness

Lock me in a lead box before I irradiate my children.  I'm so excited by the reply from Nelson Literary Agency.  When I first started looking for a literary agency they really stood out.  I like their style a lot.  They're young and enthusiastic and they have some best sellers already on their sales list.  I hope they enjoy my submission and ask for more.  If not, I still feel I did well to catch their attention.  It lets me know that I'm on track with my query letters.  

Hopefully in two months or so I'll have more good news.  Now my question is, am I supposed to wait for them to respond or keep sending out queries?  I think I'll wait, simply because I have a good handful out there and some of those may come back with some interest too.  As much fun as having multiple offers might be on paper (or in this case, in phosphors) I'd find that really stressful.  Besides, this will give me a break from marketing so that I can focus on the whole reason I got myself into this in the first place:  Writing.

Which One

I have a lot of stories to choose from.  They all have flaws.  I'm having a hard time committing.  I thought I'd go with Comes in Colors, aka Colorized, but now I'm having doubts.  So I've decided to throw this list online, basically thinking aloud, to see what happens.  (In other words, I'm inflicting my thoughts on the universe, not asking that everyone vote, although if you have suggestions I am so, so willing to hear them!)  

It's really hard to judge my own stuff.  I have the same trouble painting.  The ones people gravitate to are not my faves, generally speaking.  I'm only looking at fairly recent stories.  I don't want to dredge up really old ones for WotF.

[Secret WotF sub]:  People remember it.  It's pretty clean (though Ris is right, it could use trimming.)  It has some good visuals.  Overall, though, I'm afraid the idea is not very creative, and it certainly doesn't have much punch.  Even after editing I don't think it'll be a vivid story.

Calling In:  I think it's funny, and it recently got funnier thanks to some tightening and a plot adjustment.  I like that it's very short, the shortest thing I've written.  But, it's humor.  Humor is hard, and humor pieces deserve recognition, but I don't know if this humor piece does.  

Flight:  This is the oldest of the stories I'm considering.  It's also a shorter story.  The tale of the engineered child whose first flight is recorded in JonBenet Ramsey style has some moments that I still think about, but I think I missed the mark with it.  I dunno.

Invaders:  Although this idea of robots being engineered to imitate alien invaders is nothing new, I think having the pov from the robot is unique.  The critique I got from Strange Horizons when I offered it for publication was that it was a near miss but it felt 'slight.'  I guess I didn't go deep enough, or the situation was too cliche'.  I don't know if I'll be able to get out from under that response to submit it to a contest.

Walking the Earth:  This rambling story about an alien born on Earth after his ancestors crash landed here has some fun moments, but plot-wise it verges on a mini-novel.  It's a classic Kami short story in the sense that I had a novel plot and tidied it up enough to fit into a short story.  I've had cleaner ideas but I really like the characters in this one.

[Secret Future WotF entry]:  A story about a general who switches to the losing side of a war.  I like that she dies at the end, and how that happens, but the opening starts on one of Diedre's nits--with a bloody fight.  I suppose I could change the opening.  It wouldn't even be that hard.  Despite being last on my list, this is the one I'm closest to considering submitting to WotF instead of [The Current Actual Entry.]

I just realized that I could submit Comes in Colors one quarter, and Causes another.

And I really need to start writing more short stories if I'm going to be submitting to contests.  Sheesh, you guys, I'm a novelist!  I'm not even supposed to be here!

Double-Takes

So I've been rethinking Nanowrimo this year. I was going to not participate, but lately I've been having more than normal attacks of story ideas. Two of those ideas have manifested in full blown synopsi. And one of those feels just complete enough to make a 50,000 word story.

So I'm waffling. I admit it.

I blame the last four years. Especially that last three of those, when I dove into Nano by September and never looked back. It *feels* like story writing time, because November is close.

What to do. What to do? I might put off making any decision until the end of October. Who knows? Or I might just take the dive October 1st, sign up, and commit.

At least I have a week to give it some thought.