Yikes. October is already more than half over and I'm not even done with world building. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm ever going to be done with world building--I've been putting it off this entire week in favor of making it up as I go along during November.
I'm still going to write the novel on my original idea. As for the new idea, I've been using it as a writing exercise this month. I've also realized that this new idea is set in a similar world to a short story I wrote two or three (or was it four?) years ago, i.e. that story was also somewhat a western/horror. I had submitted it once to Cemetery Dance magazine which was rejected in one week. I don't think they ever read it. I submitted it again to a different magazine but so far I haven't heard back from them. It's been seven months and I have a feeling my manuscript is sitting at the bottom of some editor's slush pile.
Anyways, the point is, I think I can wring out at least one short story from my new idea and submit that before the end of the year. In fact, besides that one, I'll have to write up the literary short story I was planning for the Atlantic Monthly fiction contest (deadline on December 1st!) and revise another short story (this time, a scientific ghost tale) and submit both of those too before the year is out.
