Save the Semiprozine Hugo

Please go check out the movement to Save the Semiprozine Hugo at savesemiprozine.org.  I don't attend conventions so I can't vote, but make sure the word gets out if you are in favor of saving this award.  For my two cents worth, I think there should be a nonfiction and a fiction category, because apparently Locus wins every year. 

Re-discovering a Story's Voice

A while back, I posted about losing the voice of a story.  I'd written said story a while back, but the ending was troublesome.  So I let it sit.  And sit.  And sit some more.  I tried a couple of times to do a revision and had several ideas, but nothing quite worked.

The story is about two sisters who were in a bit of hot water due to their gambling habits.  They were about to have their wrists chopped off -- due consequences of cheating, you know.  One sister is homespun and full of homilies, the other a wise ass.

I finally hit upon a solution, but as revisions often have a habit of doing, after much story-wrangling, the revision read stilted to me.  I'd lost the wise-ass voice which is what made the story fun.

So I let the story sit for a week or more.  Then I printed out the revised copy along with original version with the voice.  I read them both yesterday, and to my surprise, it wasn't the voice I'd lost after all.  I guess what I lost was my enthusiasm for the story.  Letting it sit helped me clear my brain-cache and on re-read, I saw the voice was still there after all.  I just hadn't been hearing it. 

I guess the moral of the story is that when stories are rejected, it might be because the reader of the day wasn't in the right mood to hear the voice/appreciate the story.  Doesn't necessarily mean the story is bad, but as they say, just not right for that particular reader.  Or so I hope, anyway.  I hope I'm not fooling myself about the voice being there after all.  Funny thing, this writing thing.