Twice as far with half the word count.

What happened while Don was watching the game (affectionately known as Whwdwwtg) made it through the initial round of reading at Andromeda Spaceways and is now being considered by editors for inclusion in the magazine. Killing my darlings may have been painful, but apparently it did help fix the story.

This was a lesson in self-editing I’d do well to remember. With Whwdwwtg I ended up cutting more words than I liked, but as I said earlier, the first 1,500 were embarassingly easy. I guess the often heard advice to always cut your first drafts in length by at least 10% is sound after all. (Then again, it’s not surprising that I am so late accepting this advice. The first four stories I sold were all first drafts with minor edits, none of which were for length.)

If Leading Edge Magazine ends up rejecting my novelette Queen of diamonds, I think I’d do well to take a critical look at those 11,600 words, and see if it’s not a better story at 8,000…