Yay! I’m now finished a draft of “Asshole Island” which is the rewritten version of a short story I first attempted to write (or, shall I say, first drafted) a long time ago (back in 2005) titled “Instead of Pinochets.”

The good news is, I like it a lot better now. The bad news is, it’s now unarguably a novella, just over 18,000 words now that I’ve finished it. And in a world where novellas are so not the format to be writing, or, at least, not the format to be trying to sell, 18,000 words is a scary length for me to be thinking about sending out. It may get into the high or even mid-17,000s with some judicious cutting, but I should note that the story feels pretty stripped down to me already–there’s a lot that happens pretty fast, despite some stuff that seems to progress more slowly. Not sure if it’s a pacing problem, or whether maybe it’s fine. But it’s drafted, and fixing it will hurt less than producing it did, I expect.

Ah well…  Now to figure out when my crit group can/will critique it.