Every time I finish a writing journal, I start the next one with a list of Works In Progress. These are unfinished things which I genuinely intend to finish (like all writers I have a truly epic pile of never-intend-to-finish story starts, like trays of withered sprouts in an ex-gardener’s garage.)
Here’s the list from the beginning of my current journal, dated July 17, 2020:
Mot – a novel I was in the process of revising. I made it to chapter 10 and panicked it was trash and stopped.
Quixote Ugly – a novel. marked completed. Perhaps I’ll revise and shop this thing around.
Megadeath – a ghostwriting job, a novel – that is due to be published in the next couple months I think. I got paid, so this is a big fat DONE.
Everything Else – an interactive fiction I decided to give up on. I had a completed draft, but it failed to sell the only places that take IF. The premise was comparing repairing a research habitat on the moon with repairing your self-talk – you have to do things like click to remove “never” from the sentence “I’ll never do this.” Maybe it just needed more length, but trying to add more just made it muddy, so … . You can play it here.
Celeste Leaves Evidence – A short story, about my favorite sardonic killer robot, Celeste. I don’t remember anything else about this one. Will perhaps go back and look at where it left off.
Live to Eat – A short story about food insecurity, body weight issues, eating disorders, and like, what if we came up with a way not to have to eat anymore? This is like my 80th attempt at this story and it flounders.
We Built This City – Window washers striking on Venus. Currently struggling to give the damn thing an ending. I thought I’d decided how to end it but executing that ending is proving difficult.
Invention of Homelessness – re-named “The Plus One” this appeared in F&SF in June 2021 and got some nice reviews and two fan mails!
Three Little Arcologies – I never expected this one to sell but it did, to Little Blue Marble! Yay.
Maple Tree – This is about trying to grow a tree on a space station and it has a rather ham-fisted murder subplot I’m not happy about. BAH. Unfinished limbo. May revise.
Kaiju Oops – renamed “Watch Your Step” this sold to Departure Mirror.
Plan A – an interactive poem about being a kid and dreaming big – abandoned
Miss Hippogriff’s Institute of Technology – an interactive fiction about a school for technology in a magical world – a reverse Harry Potter, if you will, and the premise was all going to be about not being special but working together and yeah it got really big and I got defeated so it’s in limbo.
Fanfic: The Game – another interactive fiction I abandoned. You start with a simple story and get to choose ways to change it for fanfic goodness, like shipping and turning villains into heroes… but yeah I think this past two years I gave up hard on interactive fiction
The Summer Kids and the Gemini – a re-write of an old story about fairies living in roller coasters and it’s out on sub now.
Earth Day – a re-write of an old story I’ve re-written a half-dozen times about teen rebellion on a generational ship. It always ends up feeling too … something. In unfinished limbo.
So here is the current WIP list in roughly priority order:
- Galactic Hellcats 2: Hellcats in Love
- Tinselfly – demo due soon! Currently re-creating dialog system
- A Science Rondel I started but don’t like but shouldn’t take so long
- Untitled Space Story with like, a heist and a ship and things due March
- Potential Novel Proposal Project Thing due soon
- *We Built This City
- *Mot
- Vampires in Space for Grace – working title š
- *Celeste Leaves Evidence
- *Live to Eat
- *Maple Tree
- *Miss Hippogrif’s
- *Plan A
- *Fanfic: The Game
- *Earth Day
*carryovers
Honestly, I made this list thinking it would be longer than the one at the start of the journal, but that list is 16 long, so as usual my perception is pessimistic. Still, I’d like to knock it down even more, if I can, before I finish filling the last 10 pages of my journal. Honestly, it’d be 16 if I didn’t decide to abandon “Everything Else” completely.
We all abandon stories. These lists are how I try to limit how many I abandon, overall.
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