Writing Update

[catherineldf]

Because despite everything, there is one.

• I finished the hard copy edits to my erotic romance sf novel last night! My rewrite cycle: write, rewrite, edit on computer, run off in hard copy, do hard copy edits, enter them, cooling off period, work through again on computer, run off hard copy and edit again as needed. So it's like that except this is hopefully going to an editor this month. I can safely say that I like sections of it. But, hey, it is a completed novel that is now going to be a somewhat better novel and hopefully a better than that novel after the next round of edits and since life has not been conducive to completing anything, let alone a novel, so I'll take it. :)
  
• My story, "Bluebeard's Wife," has been accepted for The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Tales, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and to be published by Constable and Robin later on this year. Really pleased, as this one was a fair amount of work and is weird enough that it would have been hard to place elsewhere. It is a historical dealing with Victorian attitudes about women as expressed in the mental landscape of an unnamed surgeon who is also Jack the Ripper. In my 2015, all Victorians, all the time, story list, it joins my Irene Adler/Professor Moriarty story "A Scandalous Calculation" in The Mammoth Book of Moriarty Adventures, same editor and publisher, to be released in the next month or two. And my queer Poe retelling, "The Mask and the the Amontillado" in Tales of the Unanticipated, TBR 2015. I also saw a reprint of my story  "Arachne" in Best Lesbian Erotica 2015. After this, I will try and get some of my fantasy, horror and sf work done and out the door, plus going back to the werewolves in Blood Moon which has been languishing in the meantime. And my article for Queers Destroy Horror, which is underway.
  
• Other Me, Emily L. Byrne (my erotica/erotic romance writing self) has been having a good run this year, mostly in contemporary erotic and erotic romance. Emily has seen reprints of her stories "Wage Slave" in Bossier: More Productive Tales of Lesbian Lust  and "The Old Spies Club" in Spy Games: Spy Erotica, edited by Jillian Boyd. She's also seen her story "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid," in The Mammoth Book of Uniform Erotica, edited by Barbara Cardy, and has stories forthcoming in The Princess's Bride, edited by Sacchi Green (Cleis Press, TBD) and Summer Love, edited by Harper Bliss and Caroline Manchoulas  (Ladylit Publishing, 2015).

So, in short, I'm big in the UK and Hong Kong this year, since almost all these publishers and editor are based in one of those two areas. :-) At any rte, it's nice to see my short story blitz from the last few months pay off and it'll be lovely to get this book out the door to the editor, for a reality check, if nothing more. More stuff is in the offing and I hope to have more good news to share soon.