Barb Caffrey's Blog

OK, now for a quick update as to the state of the Elfyverse, AKA, “What else has Barb been doing along with readying her and Michael’s reprints — and Michael’s three great, but previously unpublished, ‘Columba’ stories — for publication at eQuill?”

Three more chapters were revised and posted to my writer’s group for AN ELFY ABROAD, the direct sequel to ELFY, in the past month.  I now have completed between 85 and 90% of this novel — but as it’s well over 250,000 words as it is, I know I will have to cut back somehow and/or split it into two books.  (It’s even longer than ELFY!)

Two more chapters were revised and posted to my writer’s group for KEISHA’S VOW, with two more chapters currently in progress but with nagging problems I haven’t yet solved.  (And as I tend to get blocked if I don’t solve ’em, I usually have to struggle for a while before I can go on.  I don’t know why this is, but I know it is my process, for better or worse.)  KEISHA’S VOW now stands about 50% complete with about 60,000 words written of a projected 110K novel.  (KEISHA’S is an ELFY prequel set in 1954 with many of the same characters from ELFY — just younger, or at least more alive, versions.)

As for CHANGING FACES, my non-Elfyverse novel that’s been in progress since 2002, it remains stalled out.  (Sorry.)  At 95K of a projected 110K novel for the fourth month in a row.)

Six stories and six poems are at various markets, while “Trouble with Elfs,” a reprinted version of the story published in 2007 at the Written Word online magazine (a tighter, better formatted version) is now available at eQuill Publishing.  Here is the link to my author page there:

http://www.equillpublishing.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=12

At any rate, you all know I’ve blogged, submitted to publishers, submitted to magazines, submitted to agents, and then done the same again several times (rinse and repeat).  I am a serious writer, at least with regards to getting my work in print; I am also serious about getting Michael’s work in print (see my parallel post about Michael’s “Columba” stories, which I blogged about just before this here at the Elfyverse blog site).

Thank you for following along with my journey; it is not yet over, and is not yet complete, for which I give whatever thanks I may.

******

Note: I have not put “Bright as Diamonds” up as a reprint yet, though I believe I have the rights to it after all this time (five years since publication).  I probably won’t, either, unless for some reason enough of my short fiction sells that I want or need to put out a short fiction collection — and that’s looking optimistically way down the road.