Living the Fictional Dream

A flash piece that I wrote a while back was rejected today. Ah, the sadness! This market actually includes a bit of feedback in the rejection letter, which is really nice. So, the feedback on this piece was that it was good and the characters were interesting, but there wasn’t enough detail in the setting. I believe the exact phrasing was that it was like the characters were talking in a void.

I went back and looked at the piece, and it was true. I had an idea of the setting in my head, but it wasn’t there on the page. So, I went back and revised the piece to get some of that in. And what happens? I end up about 150 words over the 1,000 maximum for the story to be considered flash.

Then I had to decide… edit it back down to flash length or give it a spin as-is. Part of me thinks that if you’re within spitting distance of being flash you should go for it. Missing it by 500 words is OK, but missing it by a hundred feels like I didn’t try hard enough to edit.

Then again, after rereading what I wrote, I like the additions. I think they get rid of that talking in a void thing and make the piece better. So maybe it’s better to leave it in and not worry about the arbitrary cut-off. Just let the story be the length it wants/needs to be.

In the end, I decided to give the story a shot at the longer length and emailed it out to a new market. The market I chose is hard to get into, so who knows what will happen. If I try it a few places at the longer length and get no bites, maybe I’ll try to get it back into the flash category. We’ll see.

What about you writers out there? Do you let your story length come about organically, or do you try to make it fit a certain word count (drabble, flash, short, etc.)?

It’s time for another random installment of my links posts. I’ve been doing a lot of reading this summer, so I thought I would post links to some of the really good stories I’ve discovered lately. If you’re in the mood for some quality short fiction give one of these a read (or a listen, if it’s a podcast):

• “Directions,” by Caleb Wilson — a quirky flash piece with great atmosphere. Talk about visuals! In retrospect, perhaps the twist at the end should have been obvious, but I was so caught up in the scenery that I didn’t see it coming.
• “Giant” by Stephanie Burgis — A flash piece that looks at a subset of fairy tales (princess-stealing giants) from the giant’s point of view.
• For Fear of Dragons,” by Carrie Vaughn — There’s a virgin and a sacrifice, but if you think you know where this story is going, you don’t. Not until the very end!
• “The Other Magic,” by Gere McClellan — A sweet fantasy romance. My favorite part was the interpretation of the “job” of sorcery.
• “In Lieu of a Thank You,” by Gwynne Garfinkle — I didn’t know what I would get when I clicked on this story, but after I read the first line I couldn’t stop. The old fashioned voice of the narrator was compelling and I was immediately hooked and wanted to know what had happened.
• “Looking for Friendship, Maybe More” by Corie Ralston — Don’t let the title stop you. This story is hilarious. I also enjoyed its use of email/message board format, complete with fonts and font colors.
• “Ghosts and Simulations” by Ruthanna Emrys — This story uses speculative fiction to look at death, dying, and what people will do to keep their loved ones in their life.
• “Rain” by B. Teuscher — I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this flash piece. The beginning was all about description and atmosphere. But as the story continued, I got invested in the main character, and the ending almost made me cry.
• “If We Were Briar Roses” by Brian Dolton — This story starts out like a love poem, and then, suddenly, the plot is made clear and you look at the poetry again with new eyes.
• “The Mixture” by K.C. Ball — A flash story that begins quietly, but has a surprising heroine.
• “Mail” by Kevin Shamel — Mail carriers and time travel… need I say more?

Lately, I’ve been fighting the excuse monster — that insiduous little voice inside my head that whispers excuses for not writing. I’m too tired. I’m too busy. I have no ideas. The list goes on and on.

Now, there is a difference between a reason and an excuse. Sometimes, you really do have writer’s block or you just worked a ton of overtime and are brain-fried. But, other times, you’re just giving into the excuse monster.

I guess it’s the same for any aspect of your life. You have to put time into something to get something out of it or to get to the next level. If I don’t spend time writing stories and honing my craft, I’m won’t have stories to submit or ever improve in my craft. Both of those mean that this writing thing is never going to be any more than a hobby for me.

Writing as a hobby isn’t a bad thing. Tons of people do it. But I want something more. And if I want that something more, then I have to banish the excuse monster and his whispers about laundry, returning phone calls, and surfing the Internet, and get writing.

Of course, even still, the odds are against me. There are way more aspiring authors/novelists out there than those that get published every year. But, to quote one of my favorite movies, “Your odds go up when you file an application.”

What about you guys? Career or hobby? What do you think? And what do you think will help you achieve your goal?

In other news, I had a literary flash piece accepted today, so yay! Two acceptances in one week is a very good week.

Man, this week is flying by, and I feel like I haven’t gotten a chance to actually read anything good or work on any stories. Perhaps all the work I did over the holiday had to be counter-balanced? My actual work-work has been very demanding this week, and after I get home, I’ve had little to no brain power left. Plus, there’s been overtime. Not to mention car troubles. Ug!

On the plus side, last night was a submit-a-palooza. I went through all my pending stories and submitted any that had been rejected. I also submitted a few that had already been simultaneously submitted to some new markets, as well. Hopefully work that will pay off in a few weeks or months with some acceptances!

Sometimes, it’s hard to know what market will be the best fit for a story. There are so many out there to choose from — at least when you’re talking about basic literary markets or basic fantasy markets, which were what I was looking for last night. If you go for something a little more specialized, like Christian markets or markets that specifically want superhero fictions, there are fewer to choose from.

The easiest way to find a market that fits, is to read some of their stories, but that is also the most time consuming. I do like to make sure I read at least one story from a potential market before I send in my submission.

Well, that’s really it for me right now. I think the brain-dead-ness is spilling over into the days, as well. See y’all later!

Two strange things happened to me today when I logged onto my writing email account. First, I found a rejection note from a market that I sent to eight months ago (eight months and one day, to be specific). That in and of itself is weird enough — most places I’ve submitted to thus far in my career aren’t that slow.

The rejection itself was actually a fairly good one (as far as rejections go). It said that the editor liked my story, which was what took so long, but ultimately it wasn’t a good fit for the publication. OK… fine. However, the thing that makes this even weirder, is that I had emailed this market back in March and withdrawn the story from their submission queue because it had been accepted elsewhere! Perhaps they are reading all their emails in chronological order? If they are in the November emails now, they will get my withdraw request in another six months or so!

I couldn’t decide what to do about it. Part of me wanted to fire back an email saying that it had been accepted elsewhere and withdrawn months ago. However, ultimately, I decided not to. I don’t know if I will submit anything there again (unless I’m willing to wait eight months to hear back!!!), but I figure it’s better not to burn a bridge.

The sad part is that this was my story that had been accepted by the ezine that folded. Poor little flash piece… it seems destined never to find a home!

The other weird thing that happened today was that I may have gotten an acceptance. It was kind of unclear. My story had passed the publication’s self-imposed response deadline, so I emailed to query its status. The editor emailed back to say that it had done OK in the voting and been forwarded to someone else who was writing the replies. This was followed by a mention of deciding which issue it was going to be in.

OK… yes, it is an acceptance (so, yay!!!), but I’ve never had my query responded to as an acceptance. And it was kind of funny, because it never specifically said that my story had been accepted… it just sort of… alluded to it. Very atypical.

However, I’m excited that this little flash piece found a home. I wrote it based on a prompt from my writing group’s monthly contest earlier this year, and this was the first place I ever sent it to. There is something really cool about a story getting snapped up at the first place it’s sent.

I got a couple or three rejections while out of town for the 4th of July. My answer to these rejections? Resubmit the story somewhere else! There is no shortage of markets out there, so there is no excuse not to resubmit!

Of course, it’s the stories that I like the best that I’m still waiting on responses. Isn’t that always the way?

I got lots of writing done over the holiday weekend. I worked on revising three (count ‘em, three) short stories while on my trip to South Texas. The rain down there kept us inside and kept me working instead of leaving my laptop in the suitcase.

I’ve nearly completed the second story in my urban fantasy universe (“Alpha,” my werecoyote story, takes place in this universe). This second story is a monster — over 8K (and that’s after significant cutting… originally it was over 10K). It will be hard to find a venue willing to consider a story of that length!

Well, that’s enough randomness from me today. I’m feeling quite brain dead after lack of sleep on the trip and a challenging Monday back in the office. It might be time to call it a night! Whew!

A few weeks ago, I discovered Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See on one of the summer reading tables at Barnes & Noble. The idea that captured me and pursuaded me to buy the book was the idea of nu shu, a secret language known by females and for females, kept a secret from the men.

The book is set in 19th century China, when footbinding was mandatory for all women who wanted a good marriage. After the footbinding, the women saw little but the inside of the women’s rooms in their homes or their husbands’ homes. They communicated with the women in their natal families and other friends using this secret language embroidered on handkerchiefs and clothes and written on fans.

The women’s society in this novel is like a secret society, revolving around but separate from the society of the men. Of course, in this society where sons are beloved and daughters are considered interlopers that cost money to raise for someone else to reap the benefit from (the sons they will bear), it makes sense that the women would find outlets for their needs for creativity, identity, and companionship.

This novel is the story of Lily and her friendship with Snow Flower, her “old same.” The relationship between the girls is arranged when they are children, and they become closer than sisters through nu shu correspondence and long visits. They are very similar, both born in the year of the horse, but they are on opposite tracks in life. Lily’s rank moves up while Snow Flower’s moves down, and their relationship strains to stay strong despite the changes and other people’s negative views.

This book is not necessarily a “feel good” book, but it is very interesting to read. It takes the reader into a culture that is vivid and (most likely) like nothing they’ve been introduced to before. We’re all used to hearing about what a “horror” foot binding was and how it was degrading to women, but in this novel, it was a normal part of life. The women both hated it and took pride in it.

Lily is a powerful character and very resourceful. It is amazing how, as a woman, she can still exert control over the men in her life. Snow Flower is an emotional and tragic figure, powerful in her own right. I’m a sucker for a story about relationships between women — especially mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends — and the relationship between Lily and Snow Flower is at times both beautiful and painful to watch.

If my description sounds at all interesting to you, I would recommend that you pick up a copy of the novel. I’m definitely glad that I read it. However, I would warn you, that there are graphic descriptions of things like the footbinding, so if that would be too much for you, then you’d either need to pass or skip over those parts.

Lately, my muse is whispering superhero fiction in my ear. I believe I blogged a little about that a few days ago. I’ve written two superhero stories already, one of which was published by and the other accepted by A Thousand Faces. I have two more written and in the revision process (sadly, I haven’t been able to get a lot of feedback on them — everyone is so busy for the summer — but I shall muddle through), and ideas for another one or two.

I’ve been trying to figure out what is so interesting about superhero fiction. I’ve always been interested in superheroes, but I’ve never been much of a comic reader. I find the characters in comics fascinating, but I never really got hooked on them. Even though I think that comic art can be gorgeous, I personally prefer more meaty prose to pictures. But I definitely appreciate the art of comics. And I’ve always enjoyed the various superhero movies and TV shows, even before special effects got good enough that Marvel started selling rights to Hollywood willy-nilly.

After thinking on it for a while, I’ve decided that the thing that makes superheroes interesting is how they put the normal life stuff into a grander more life-and-death perspective. If I have a bad day, I suffer, and maybe my friends or family suffer a bit. If Superman has a bad day, Metropolis and even the world suffers.

It’s especially interesting to me when superheroes have to deal with the mundane. We’re so used to that image of the perfect superhero — the one who swoops in and saves the day without wanting anything in return, the one who thinks of others first, the one who fights for truth and justice because it’s the right thing to do.

But what happens when s/he is out of the public eye? What do they really feel? What is their life really like? Do they hate cleaning the house, or is it no big deal since it’s done in five minutes anyway? Superheroes doing housework, superheroes having issues with their spouses, superheroes on blind dates, superheroes feeling like they aren’t part of the “cool” superhero crowd… all interesting to me, as is how they might deal with it.

And, let’s face it, it’s also awesome when superheroes toss those emotional mundane issues aside and show up to save the day despite their personal lives. Also, with superheroes, anything can happen — the possibilities are endless with that amount of power at your disposal.

Though, how is all this superhero stuff so different than, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer? That show was founded on the premise that “high school is hell.” We saw all the traditional teen stories — the prom, losing one’s virginity, dealing with a divorced parent dating again, having friends suddenly change on you to hang out with a new group — but we saw them through a filter of the supernatural. It was looking at the same thing through a different lens and finding a story there there that resonates.

Despite having more supernatural origins, Buffy herself was a superhero of sorts. Not in the traditional cape-wearing, radioactive-spider-bite way, but she had superpowers of her own. She had mundane things to face, and she had to burst in and pummel her way to saving the day on many occasions, despite boy problems, friendship issues, and anything else that came along.

So really, superheroes are another realm of genre fiction, just like fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. Probably some of all of those. So, perhaps my muse’s new interest in superhero fiction is just another facet in a life-long interest in genre fiction.

Either way, I’m definitely enjoying the flight, and I’ll ride it out however long it lasts. Maybe when it’s over, I’ll have enough superhero short stories for a collection. I think, though, that eventually I’m going to need to give my superheroes’ city a name. I can’t keep calling it “the city” forever!

So, if you’re out there and have read this long, what do you think makes superhero fiction so interesting? Or, if not superheroes specifically, what is it you like about genre fiction in general?

Podcasts… the short story equivalent of an audio book. Snippets of fiction read aloud that can be listened to on the website or downloaded to your iPod or iTunes to listen to later.

I’d never really thought about this before, but it’s a cool idea. And, from a writing perspective, how amazing would it be to hear the words you write read aloud? Very, is my thought!

I took a screen writing class while earning my master’s degree. As part of the class we wrote two-page scenes and the professor brought in two actors to perform them. Watching my words come to life like that was amazing… Listening probably would be great, as well.

The other good thing about fiction podcasts from the writer’s point of view is that they seem to love reprints (or, at least, the ones whose guidelines I looked at did). It’s not often in the print and e-zine world that you can sell the same story twice!

I’ve been researching short fiction podcasts (with the help of some recommendations from my friend Stephanie), and I’ve come up with a few that seem interesting. I haven’t listened to all of them yet, but the ones that I did listen do had some great stories. If you’d like to try out a fiction podcast, you could start with one of these:

• Pod Castle — fantasy.
• Escape Pod — science fiction.
• Pseudopod — horror (pay attention to that warning on the first page).
• Drabblecast — speculative fiction/weird tales.
• Well Told Tales — horror, sci-fi, crime/hardboiled, pulp.
• Clonepod — sci-fi/fantasy.
• Bound Off — literary fiction.
• The Great Beyond — sci-fi/fantasy (though this one doesn’t seem to be updating very regularly).

If you do check some of these out, let me know which ones are your favorites.