Since Viable Paradise XVIII I have:
1) Revised my steampunk story “Machines in Motion” and submitted to Crossed Genres. This one I think is well worthy – the first two pages appeared at a reading at Viable Paradise and got a great response, and Victoria Sandbrook helped with the revised post-VP version. Of course now I feel like I left a niggling-but-hateful conceptual flaw, but (A) probably nobody else will notice, and (B) too late to change it!
2) Revised my fantasy story “The Grasp of the Waves” and submitted to Crossed Genres. I got Scott Lynch to critique this one at VP, and and got some good feedback from Shveta Thakrar too, but this perhaps needed more work than I could accomplish before its 10/31 deadline. I decided to give it a shot anyhow, because it’s a very good fit for that theme/deadline; CG is a rare market that allows 2 submissions at once.
3) Revised my fantasy story “Weights and Measures” and submitted to Strange Horizons. I got Elizabeth Bear to critique this one at VP, followed this week by a delightful #VP18edits Twitter swarm-critique of a single troublesome sentence. This story is *awesome* and I cannot wait for someplace to buy it so I can show it off! Hands-down my best work so far.
4) Submitted my science fiction VP-Thursday story “The Nursery” to my online critique group, and gotten feedback from two people. The major issues seem to be the ones I already know about. They are fixable, but it will take some major finesse and craft to resolve. Not sure I can accomplish them before the 11/16 deadline, what with traveling 12th-21st to attend the Society for Neuroscience conference. I will risk the wrath of the jellyfish and aim for the end of the November.
5) Not even touched my VP submission story. All those lovely notes are still sitting on the corner of my desk, wrapped in a ziploc bag. I did get a brilliant plot suggestion from a friend when I read it to my secret post-VP party, so I have some general ideas how to rebuild it. Probably not until December though.
6) Read all kinds of other wonderful post-VP wrap-ups. So nostalgic already! I need to live in a place with more SFF authors around. Twitter is an all-too-timesinky replacement. At least I’ll get to see a few classmates when I travel this month!