Update: Check out my NEW website (still in progress) at robertlowellrussell.com (it redirects to a wordpress account, but it's nice.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

I reveived my Writers of the Future semi-finalist critique

I received my Writers of the Future semi-finalist critique, and the prognosis for my short novella, "Star Heart, Skin of Darkness," is better than I expected (I may cut the last part of that title).

Wolverton/Farland said he wanted more detail (I've heard he's a details guy and I'm more of a minimalist) but that my novella was actually a bit too long for the contest. I guess blank space is counted? I suppose that makes sense for a print publication. So for what I had at 16K words by word processor count came out closer 22K by his measure. However, this did not disqualify my entry, which he said was very close to being a finalist.

What I think could have made it better is not trying to force the piece into a smaller space. He even said he could see my novella expanded into a novel. It's probably just the few scattered hours of sleep I've had (my daughter was up sick last night), but I feel weirdly giddy.

-RLR

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