So, What's Next?

Have to say I'm torn.

I really, really enjoyed this summer continuing work on "Considering How to Run," even though what the story really needs is a good edit by someone who is absolutely ruthless and won't mind hurting my feelings (I still think my wife would be good at this).

I can't do it. Not now. I'm too close. Not, perhaps, to the first installment, but certainly to this summer's workings. Getting too close means you can't see the flaws, the idiot mistakes and such.

There's another possibility. Two, rather.

First, what I call my "Dr. Seuss Novel." I read many years ago in a TIME magazine piece on Theodor Seuss Giesl that, before he became famous as a childrens' author through the publication of "To Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street," he wrote advertising copy for an insecticide called Flit -- to fill the fridge -- and "serious novels" -- to feed the soul. "Slouching Toward Bensonville," of which I've posted snippets from on this blog, is my "Serious Novel," and I could, conceivably, go back to it.

I could also pick up what's a novella right now -- "The Hermit of Iapetus" -- and expand that story. It's got possibilities. Of course, so do stinky socks and you don't see me picking them up all the time.

An edit of "Considering" has to happen. It's now my goal to have it ready to farm out to agents and publishers by the end of the year. I don't know how successful I'll be -- well, I do know: I won't be successful at all. But I can at least try, right?