Love You To Death

 A few months ago I was invited to work on a horror anthology. I was flattered, as it says right in the website that if you were invited to submit for this anthology it means that the people running the thing were of the opinion that you were a writer of sufficient quality to be sought out for the project. You weren't guaranteed a spot in the book, but they were actively interested in looking at what you might have to submit for the project.

In other words, they liked me.

The due date for submissions is January 31^st, which is just one week away. I started working on it last Thursday, and I'm 5,500 words in. Since the word cap is 5,000, that means I get to edit and tighten it, which is good. I can always use that.

Here's the problem:

This morning on the project FaceBook page they posted that there haven't been enough submissions to create a book, even if they just accept everything they are given. And they don't want to do that.

“But wait!” I posted. “I thought submissions don't close until the 31^st!”

“Yes,” they replied, “that's true. Perhaps we will get enough submissions by then to consider the project again, but we think it looks a little doubtful. If you have anything, please hold onto it and we'll try to either open the project up and get more submissions or try to use your stuff somewhere else. We'll keep you all posted, whatever happens.”

Terrific. Here I am, five and a half thousand words into a story, and I'm told they don't need the work? Tough luck, guys. I'm finishing the story. I kind of have to.

Did I mention that the working title of the Anthology was “Zombies Need Love Too”?

We were advised to make the story a story, and not to try to float some kind of Undead Porn story. “Pretty much anything else goes,” said the editor who was proposing the project. “Even humor. Especially humor. I mean, we're talking about stories of zombies and sex. How is that not funny?”

Now, I've already written the 'romantic walking dead' scene, and I'm about to go on to the 'morning after, oh my God I slept with that?' scene. I don't care what they do about the anthology – I have to finish writing this thing! I'm dying to see how it turns out!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.)

Talk to you later!