Publish a collection of short stories

This is not going to happen anytime in the near future. I started working on it twice and stalled. Now my attention (and free time) is drawn toward a larger project, a novel (my third). Although it would certainly be nice to collect my short stories, published and unpublished, into a single volume, they were never written with that intent in mind, and in terms of creating a book, at least two more “on theme” stories are needed to complete this (plus illustrations). Soooo… I’m not giving up on this goal, but I am taking it off my list of priorities and releasing it from any deadlines. Like many of my longer-term goals, it will simply happen when the time is right. And that’s not this year.

I started on one of the two remaining stories in January, but lost momemtum in Feb/Mar as I helped a friend on his political campaign, then traveled to Japan/Hawaii to visit family. Now I’ve got my life back, sort of, and I have revised the schedule so that the book can be out in time for my birthday in October. It all depends on getting the last two stories done. If I focus, it will happen. Not sure about illustrations at this time, but I’ve got a few months to consider it.

After I created the schedule and started to consider the stories to be included, I realized I still have two unwritten ones that belong in the collection. One is very short, based in Korea. The other might be quite long, based in Thailand. Neither is the original anchor story I had in mind, but both are worthy of inclusion. Looks like I have a little writing to do during the holidays ahead. Very interesting. I’m feeling a bit motivated.

Dec 20 – Begin collecting the stories in a Word file
Apr 30 – Complete Korean story
May 31 – Complete Thai story
Jun 20 – Begin final editing
Jul 20 – Begin book layout and design
Aug 20 – Submit documents to printer
Sep 10 – Final proofreading
Sep 15 – Begin production
Oct 06 – Delivery of finished books

(revised 01/04/07)
(revised 04/14/07)

I’ve already completed the bulk of the stories for this collection. Most of them have been published separately in magazines or anthologies. I’d like to wrap them all up in a single collection, but right now it would make a very slim volume. I think the project needs two or three more stories to be complete, or perhaps an anchor story that’s rather long compared to the others. It might also be nice to have some illustrations, but it’s not going to be a book for youth. It would require artwork that speaks to an adult readership. This project has ben on my back burner for about five years now.