I got second place in the little contest of the little SciFi and Fantasy board I'm on with 'Discipline'. It's only out of 10 total stories but being what I consider my first real short story and, as per the rules, done with no feedback it still feels pretty good. It makes me feel like I can trust my editing even if feedback is still crucial to really finishing it off.

Congrats, Gud! That's some nice validation.

Eta: I like the story, too. That's an interesting world you've built.

Woot! Some early reviews are starting to roll in for STARS and they're so sweet, especially since they're from librarians! (We loves our librarians, we do...)

This one just got it, top to bottom.

[link]

And this was another great one.

[link]

Please, all the gods and little fishes, let this be a SIGN.

Congrats Barb! I hope the sweetness keeps rolling.

Thanks -t, the world from that story will likely be my next novel, along with the main character.

Congrats to both of you, Gud and Barb!

Congrats to both of you! Barb, those are great reviews.

Lots of good news! Excellent! Congratulations, Barb and Gud!

I'm getting my novel momentum back, I kind of took a break after the last revision and lengthened that break it by writing a short story. But now I'm getting ready for chapter 5 in my comment sifting and tweak-making revision. I need to get moving to finish this off by year's end.

I've made some adjustments to my short story 'Sarah' that hopefully also makes the decision at the end a bit more balanced.

Though I sent my parents a link to my short stories, I didn't really expect them to read them (not Sci-Fi readers). To my surprise, my mom said she read and liked 'Discipline', especially the ending.

OK - Three editors like my proposal. The problem is getting it past the committees, and the Senior editor thinks we need a better title. Conveying what the book is about trumps Euphony or cleverness. The current title:subtitle is "Cooling a Fevered Planet: Beyond Market Tinkering - An American Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis".

The book's argument is essentially that the climate crisis stems from inequality - not only contributes to it but actually is caused by it. That is the same economics factors that cause unequal distribution of wealth and income also cause the particular kinds of waste that lead to climate change.Thus for various good reasons, putting a price on carbon is NOT the primary solution to global weirding, in spite of the conventional wisdom. Instead the primary solutions are reducing inequality, and compensating for past effects via public investment and rule based (non-price) regulations (such as efficiency regulations, and Renewable Energy requirements for utilities). Now obviously I can't say all this in the title, but my editor thinks I need to convey some of it. Also, she doesn't want to me rely on the subtitle. She wants as much of it as possible in the main title.

Senior Editor seems to think the right title is important in getting through the committee. So any thoughts would be welcome.

(I'm not sure the reasoning is right in terms of what title is for. But I'm also sure the Senior editor knows what she needs to sell the committee and I would rather it get published with a bad title than not published with a good one. So again suggestions that fit the requirement of conveying a lot about what the books is about are welcome.)

In thread if you think a game of "title the book" would be fun, or my profile addy is good otherwise.

Is there a target audience or tone? Academic or popular?