The wait is nearly over. I have finally come up with a table of contents I can live with! I say that not because I’m unhappy with the stories I’ve included (far from it) but instead because of the ideas I had to let go along the way. Seriously, some of these cuts were so painful I just had to keep asking myself, do I totally love this idea and will I ever forgive myself if I don’t commission it?
I came up with a nifty way to commission a couple of extra stories, more on that later in the year, but in the main the table of contents I’ll be announcing in one week will be what appears in the published book.
I am truly excited about the quality of the story ideas I’ve selected, the brilliance of the writers behind them, and the really interesting way they can all fit together. There were some moments of unbelievable serendipity, and in some cases one story won out over another I loved just as much because it slotted so neatly into the overall narrative.
The losses have been painful, but the result I believe is going to be something really special. My dream of a novel with many voices is a step closer to reality.
Of the 80 proposals I received, I have written responses to 52 of them. I’m not going to send any out until they are all written, that way everyone has to wait the same amount of time. It’s frustrating to have to wait – believe me I know – but I think that’s the fairest way to do it. It also avoids speculation when you see a dozen people cheering that they got accepted and you haven’t heard anything yet. I’m confident I can complete all the responses and send them out this weekend, so not long to wait now!
Thanks to everyone who submitted. You’re all buggers for making my job so damn hard, but I wouldn’t have it any other way :)
That very thing happened with another antho I had submitted to at the beginning of the year. I hadn’t heard anything, so on a whim, I did a Google search, and I’ll be damned if someone wasn’t blogging about being accepted. Infuriating. I laugh about it now, but then? Not so much, really. :)
– Ray