“Editing an anthology will be a lot of work,” they said. “It’ll take a lot of time and dedication,” they said. Did I listen? Ha!
Ha, I say!
Ok, so this whole anthology undertaking has already been a huge learning experience. The good news is that the learning ain’t over yet, but the bad news is that it’s not going to be finished as quickly as I thought it would be. For some reason I thought I would be able to finish up all my selections and do all the editing necessary within a couple of weeks at the end of November, having the book properly formatted and ready for public consumption in time for Christmas. Boy, was I wrong. Between my day job and life in general, I’ve been pretty much slammed… also I was far more optimistic about how much time the anthology would take than I had any right to be.
I have made progress. The Silent Screams submission period closed at the end of October, with a grand total of 182 submissions. I’ve read all the stories, but I still haven’t finalized my TOC– there are a couple I’m still debating over. Besides this I still have a largish chunk of actual editing to do on the stories I’ve accepted, as well as a few other details to finalize. As things stand (with December nearly upon us), there is no way the book will be finished as quickly as I would like.
I did acknowledge the possibility of this in my submission guidelines, though. It looks like we’re going to be leaning toward the “early 2016” side of things, rather than the “December 2015” projected release date. Hang on just a little while longer, folks. I have high hopes for this book, but I also don’t want to rush it. I want it to be the best it can possibly be. Here’s to January-February 2016.