Friday, January 30, 2009

One novella, to good home

I did not win the 3-day Novel Contest, nor was I short-listed. However, my certificate of survival (arrived today) has a sticky note on it, saying:
Hi Barbara - Good to have you back! The judges liked your ideas--hope you keep developing it...

Shall I count that as a personalised rejection?

Here is a somewhat disturbing tree from Lincoln. I think it has humanoid pupae embedded in the trunk, though other theories are welcome.

5 comments:

fairyhedgehog said...

You wrote a novel in three days? I'm impressed. I didn't manage to write one in thirty days this year!

batgirl said...

Oh I failed utterly at Nanowrimo last year. About 4k or so, was all.
My 3-day novel was a novella - 18k - like most of them, which run about 20-25k. I enjoy it more than Nano, I think because it's concentrated terror.

fairyhedgehog said...

18k in three days is hugely impressive! I know I couldn't do it.

Are you going to edit it now?

batgirl said...

I looked at it yesterday for the first time since I mailed it off, and it's not bad. 18k is an awkward length to sell, though, so I have to figure out whether it needs peeling down or fluffing up.

Plus, is there a market for a story that includes a scene of a mad scientist playing a grotesque, cobbled-together organ while a child's soul is extracted in a glass cage nearby?

You should try the 3-day though. You might be surprised what you can accomplish in the time.

fairyhedgehog said...

I have no idea what the market is for fiction but the mad scientist scene sounds unusual and grotesque. I would have thought there'd be a market for it somewhere.