I just received word that my short story “9th Ward” has been accepted by The Midnight Diner anthology and will see print this October in a spiffy trade paperback.  The post-Katrina tale follows a hurricane victim trying to survive a supernatural collision of past and future New Orleans.

Severed Dreams is headed back to the writing group for one last round of comments before a final polish. Hopefully, all the major issues have been ironed out at this point and we’re down to minor details. In about a month, I’ll start getting feedback on the third draft and I’ll know how close I am to a final version.

I just finished principle revisions on the third draft of Severed Dreams. Ten authors contributed to the rewrite, averaging one page of comments for every twenty pages of manuscript. In all, the combined comments added up to just over two hundred pages of emails and transcribed notes.

As you can imagine, it takes a good deal of time to review so many opinions…and even more time to make the agreed upon changes. I missed my February deadline by a few weeks, but hopefully that added effort will show up in the manuscript. I’ll be fine tuning the third draft over the next couple weeks and submitting it to my writing group mid-April.

Yes, rewriting a novel is a bit like rolling a large bolder uphill, but I’ve managed to make steady progress. Hopefully, I’ll get to the top before I look like this guy!

The first act of the third draft is now complete. I’ve tested some of the new material out, and the response has been very positive. The polished opening will now go to my writing group while I work on streamlining the middle of the book. I’m a little behind schedule, but there’s still a good chance I will finish by the end of February.