And, almost back-to-back, my story "Seeing Stars" is up in Crossed Genres 23: Dreams and Nightmares. "Seeing Stars" is the story of an modern-day oracle with brain damage who’s driven to help a fellow patient, a human siren.

This one’s a lot gentler than most of my stories, and I’m happy that the editors at Crossed Genres loved it enough to take it. I’ve heard good things about their operating process, and my experience has lived up to the reports–they use a standard contract, they get back to you with edits in a prompt fashion, and they reliably deliver the final product. They’re a monthly issue, so that last is particularly impressive.

Along with me, this issue also features Ursula Wood, Tim Ford, R.C. Lewis, Mae Empson, and Donald Jacob Uitvlugt. The art–an eerie portrait titled "Torn Psyche" is by Cloxboy, a graphic artist who’s moving into fine art. This is a very interesting turnout in authors–Uitvlugt is a fellow winner of the ChiZine contest where my "Bonepickers" placed (not like I’d forget his name). And I’ve encountered one other author in real life, not even close enough to be acquaintances, only through mutual friends, but that’s still a first.

Interesting story about this submission: shortly before I sent it, I read another writer’s blog post on how he sent the wrong version of a story out to an editor. Ha, ha, I went to myself, that’s stupid. I always double-check.

And then I tried switching "Seeing Stars" to past tense, because I saw all the other Crossed Genres work was in past. I only got through a paragraph before it was obvious that it wasn’t going to work for the story, but I saved it as the most recent update. And so the version I initially submitted to CG had one paragraph in past tense where the rest was in present.

I’ve learned, in general as in writing, that if I get an immediate surge of superiority about something, I am far more likely to be/do that exact same thing in the near future. It’s like my theater technical director always said: you’re most likely to have an accident right after a near miss.

Awareness of my capacity for error* has helped me to create an internal system of checks and balances.  Here are a few of the things I check when I’m revising a submission:

• Are my themes clearly delineated?
  Often I’ll think the theme of my story is obvious: "Of course it’s about exploitation!" but when I go back and check, I realize that what’s on the page is different than what’s in my head.
• Is my character voice distinctive?
  Once I find a voice I like, it tends to leak over into other stories, other characters. The easiest way to distinguish voices is to develop different vocabularies for individual characters. I heard recently about a writer who made a list of words that he would never use but were part of his character’s everyday vocabulary. I’d like to try this.
• Do I have any superfluous scenes?
  Often I include scenes that exist solely to establish the intra-story zeitgeist. I feel like they’re crucial for character or thematic development, but sometimes the story is ultimately stronger without them. This applies more to short stories than longer forms.
• Linguistic foibles:
  Did I overuse the word "but"?
  Do I have -ings, imperfect tense verb forms?
  Do I have too many said-bookisms?
  Did I substitute any homonyms for words like "wreak" havoc or "bated" breath?
  Am I repeating words?

My list of things to check is constantly changing, based on what becomes automatic and what I discover based on feedback. I usually catch the -ings before they come out, but to catch the homonyms I have to completely disassociate from content. The distinctive voices might only be a concern for me, but I usually need outside feedback to recognize the thematic gaps.

(*Only after writing this did I realize that ‘blind spots’ would have been an apt metaphor. Especially given the way I started with "Seeing Stars".)

So, that’s me. What are your blind spots? What are the checks and balances you use to catch them?