Lime was out of town last night, visiting her folks, and I ended up proofreading one story then, and another today. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s almost 25,000 words of fiction I was working with. It was a lot.

The good news is that with only a few changes, two more pieces will be ready to go out the door: my Korean superheroes novella and the latest version of a story I started years ago, about one Professor Whitney (now set in the 1970s, with some tighter thematic material and a tighter character arc, as well as some neat — I think — POV shifts.

I’m hoping to get those changes done tomorrow, along with the final proofreading on a couple of shorter things I’ve been planning to send out. It’s about time: I have one story on hold somewhere, and nothing else out on the market. It’s not that I’m getting lazy, I’ve just been ridiculously busy. Lots of other stuff in the pipe : I’ve printed a bunch of stories, and am working my way through the pile. Some of them, I get ten pages in, and just scrawl “rewrite”  (or, “compress first ten pages into 2 pages!”) across the front page in red pen and set them aside. I’ve done it with two so far: “Realer” and “Rupt”, the former just needing compression at the beginning, the latter needing a complete rewrite. Others just get editing marks and go into the “enter changes” pile.

The stories remaining in my pile? Thousands of words of stuff, really. Probably a whole novel’s worth of words, actually. But I’ll put a cut in here for those who would rather not know.

Here’s a list of the stuff I have printed. Which is not exhaustive of what I’m planning to edit. There are a few pieces I may get to sooner than some of these, in fact, because they’re closer. The more I write, the closer I am in early drafts, and some of these are really early stories. But, anyway, here’s what else is in my pile.

• “The Spike”/”The Broken Path” (I’m thinking of calling it “On Wonmi Mountain”) — general editing, a few excisions, compression of first section
• “Winter Wheat” —  general editing, rewriting of several sections,additions, excisions — lots to do here
• “A Killing in Burma” — continue to draft, maybe? Figure out if this is maybe a short novel, or a long novella. I’m starting to suspect it’s a short novel, though. And that means I need to know more about Burma. Gaaaaah. More research. 
• “McWar” (may be retitled eventually) — general editing, a few cuts and bits rewritten
• “Bodhisattva” — rewrite completely from manuscript
• “Asshole Island” (previously “Instead of Pinochets”) [12,300 words]— general editing, some compression, major changes to ending/plot progression
• “With My Mouth” — no idea. quite possibly complete rewrite from manuscript.
• “Why Korean Eat Dog” — complete rewrite, mostly set sometime after the ending of the original, with occasional use of original version as backfill
  
• “Tannenbaum” (my Clarion West submission story, and a Christmas tale) — no idea. maybe just details, including some change in the discussion of the Aral Sea, now that they are indeed refilling it, since my characters were, sometime in the 2030s, discussing plans for its refilling
• “Erosion” — complete rewrite from original manuscript, I think. This is a nasty story about medication-dispenser implants and what happens when they’re defective, except all of that is just implied…
  
• “Comfort” — minor editing and changes. Consideration as the new opening chapter of my upcoming (someday) rewrite of the novel I drafted in winter 2003-04, titled Dead Abroad.