I am very proud to announce that I finished my 50,000 rough draft for a new book of fiction today. I called it "Calaveras in the Closet: Stories and Novellas." The exact word count was 52,945 words.
Here's the disjointed premise of the book:
All the characters I've ever created (and left behind) have banded together to form CACA, the Circle of Abandoned Characters Anonymous, a support group and 12-step program for those who need to air out their many abandonment issues, resentments, and unheard stories.
There are 10 stories and 3 novellas, although when and if I ever revise the book, I'm going to chop off 4 of the stories, as these were just grist for the writer's mill, ways to get me started with the writing process this year without actually knowing where I was going.
Between now and next summer, I will be thinking about these stories, these characters needing to be heard, and hopefully, the elves in my brain will work their magic while I burn the midnight oil at my academic job and figure out how to turn all of this into a viable collection, my second collection of short fiction.
