Living the Fictional Dream

Hello, discriminating readers and fellow writers and bloggers.

I just learned that the second annual print anthology from Every Day Fiction, titled The Best of Every Day Fiction Two, is now available to order. You can order it here, or it is my understanding that Amazon and other such places will have it available soon.

This anothology contains not just one, but four of my stories that were published at EDF during the 2008 - 2009 publication year, including “A Million Faces” and “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Knight,” which were two of my favorites. Writing group mates Alex, Stephanie, and Jens, all have stories in it, as well, and so do other great writers like K.C., Gay, Kevin, and more.

If you like flash fiction… heck, if you like good fiction… you should definitely check this anthology out!

If you need a little pre-Christmas cheer (but without the token cheese factor) head over to The Rose and Thorn and check out writing group mate Sandra’s story, “Christmas Eggs.”

I believe this is her second publication, and it’s a fun read.

For your post-Thanksgiving reading pleasure, check out the new issue of A Thousand Faces, which includes my story, “Dinner for Three.” This can loosely be considered a sequel of my story “Bridge Club,” which was published in ATF issue 6.

The idea behind “Bridge Club” was to explore what super heroes’ spouses do while their loved ones are out saving the world. “Dinner for Three” goes back to the hero’s point of view and explores the options when things don’t work out with the spouse.

I love stories about the intrapersonal relationships of superheroes. Sure, action-adventure and crime-fighting are great, but what happens when the masks and capes come off? Can a super hero go on a blind date like any other person, or will the secret identity always get in the way?

If you read “Bridge Club,” you might be interested to note that Greg from “Dinner for Three” is the same character as Craig in “Bridge Club.” The bridge club members all use pseudonyms — Greg just wasn’t very creative!

If you check out “Dinner for Three,” leave me a comment here and let me know what you thought of it. I hope you enjoy reading the newest jaunt into my super hero ‘verse as much as I enjoyed writing it!

And, once you’re over there, you should check out the rest of the new issue. There is some great fiction in there, including “A Son of the Night” by K.C. Ball. And, as with all issues of ATF, if you want to have it after the issue is taken offline, go here to buy your very own print copy.

It’s already 11/4, and I have yet to even go to a write-in. Crazy! I’m not used to this. Not that my hours aren’t totally accounted for — the busy season at work and taking care of the little one have been fully consuming.

However, I must admit, I do miss the hustle and bustle of NaNoWriMo. There is something energizing about jumping into a novel feet first and taking off running toward the finish line. It’s hard, but it’s satisfying at the same time.

My only real complaint about NaNo is that the finished product requires a lot of revision. Since novel revision is something I am particularly bad at (illustrated by the fact that even though I’ve completed several novel first drafts, I have yet to finish something that is finished enough to think about sending off to agents), NaNo isn’t quite as helpful to me as it could be. But it sure does give you a rush. And that creative rush is awesome. So is the companionship of knowing so many people are out there pulling on the universal muse at the same time.

I’m looking forward to my writing group’s NaNo write-ins. Several are coming up. We’ve got some Friday lunch write-ins scheduled, as well as a couple on Tuesday nights and Saturday brunches. We’ll see how many I can make. I do hope to get some writing done during November. Any progress would be a victory compared to my snail’s pace this year.

I hope all you Wrimos out there are doing well and that you’re still in that high of the first 10K. I wish you all plentiful word counts, and that you are spared from any carpal tunnel or eye strain issues. Keep it up!

Oh, and in other news, writing group mate Stephanie had a story up at Every Day Fiction recently. Check it out here, if you have time. It’s a short read — light and fun.

This morning, when I checked my email, I found the proof for “Dinner for Three,” a story set in my superhero universe that is coming out in the next issue of A Thousand Faces.

There is something fun about looking over a proof of my very own story. It’s a little sneak peek as to what it will look like when it’s published. And a proof makes the acceptance real, at least to me. I may have had an email acceptance sitting in my inbox for the past six months, but now the story is actually here, right in front of me.

I also revised my bio, which was fun. I was able to mention my baby girl in it, which gave me a happy.

All in all, a very pleasant morning. I hope you all have some good news to brighten your day. And, hey, if you haven’t read issue 9 of ATF, click on the link above and check it out. There are some really good superhero stories in this issue, including one by my writing group mate, Stephanie.

I haven’t had a lot of time for reading short fiction lately, a fact which makes me sad. Hopefully, things will calm down at work soon (the fall is our busiest season), and I can get caught up on Every Day Fiction and all the other great ‘zines out there.

However, I have managed to read a few stories every once in a while, so here are a few links that I think y’all might be interested in.

First off, my writing group mate, Alex, has a story out in Big Pulp. It’s called “Big in Ak-Sar-Ben,” It’s a fun flash piece — a bit steam punk, a bit superhero. I love the professor main character, and how brains over brawn save the day.

Second, K.C. Ball had a story in EDF earlier this month called “Canticles.” It’s a ton of action packed into the flash fiction format. And, if you want more stories, you can always check out K.C.’s speculative flash fiction e-zine, 10Flash.

Finally, also at EDF this month, check out “Grown from Man to Dragon” by Megan Arkenberg. I love Megan’s fantasy stories, and this is no exception. She knows how to pack a lot of world into a small word count. And, for more stories, you can check out Megan’s fantasy e-zine, Mirror Dance.

Happy reading!

First of all, I’m excited to report that my story, “The Wall,” will appear in the September 2009 issue of Hypersonic Tales. This publication provides readers flash fiction in both text and audio formats. I’m excited, as this will be my first audio publication.

Second, go check out EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles. There is a new article up about writing communities for flash fiction authors written by Alex, and if you scroll down a little further, you’ll see the details for an interesting writing contest — the FFC String-of-10 Contest.

Oh, and this is a little belated, but nominations are open for EDF’s 2008 anthology. Stories published between September 2008 and August 2009 can be nominated. If you’d like to nominate a story (and I’ve had several good ones in, such as “A Million Faces” and “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Knight” — look at my stories page for links), go here.

Finally, a couple of story links for your perusal (I don’t think I’ve linked these here yet) — “Love, Death and Doughnut Holes” by Stephanie and “Tears of Clobbersaurus” by Jens.

It’s a new day, so you must be looking for more short fiction to read, right?

First off, a little anticipation. Every Day Fiction recently released it’s table of contents for July, and I’m very excited by the story that will be appearing on July 12th — “The Only Thing Left to Do” by my friend J.P. Tioga. I critted this piece for her, and it’s a great bit of flash. I know you’ll all enjoy it!

While I was at EDF this morning, I read today’s story of the day, “Recipe.” It’s an interesting sci-fi piece. I like stories that show the fantastic and speculative as a mundane, daily event. But the kicker for me with this story was that the main character was deaf. What some might call his disability, turns out to be exactly what he needed in this sci-fi situation. There isn’t enough short fiction out there exploring such different points of view.

When perusing the blog-0-sphere, I discovered that writing group mate, Stephanie, has a new story out. It’s called “Misty,” it’s live at M-Brane SF. It looks like you have to purchase or subscribe to read this one in electronic format. “Misty” is another story that I helped critique during the writing process, and it’s an interesting and quirky take on a sci-fi idea that you might have seen done before, but never like this.

Finally, I had the chance yesterday afternoon to read more of 10Flash’s inaugural issue. I haven’t been able to read all the stories as of yet, but I did get to some of them, and it really is a great issue. Some of the stories that I really enjoyed (in addition to Alex and Gay’s that I linked yesterday) were “A Small Dark Room” by Jordan Lapp, “The Dangers of Kafka in Cairo” by Megan Arkenberg, and “In the Basement” by D.J. Barber.

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of craziness, made up mostly of home improvement projects (specifically, getting everything ready for new carpet to be laid in the nursery and the master bedroom).

With all that home improvement going on, publication of the inaugural issue of 10Flash totally snuck up on me! But, it is live today, and everyone should go check it out. What are you waiting for? Do it now!

K.C. has done a great job compiling an awesome line-up of stories for the first issue based on the theme of a librarian on vacation in a foreign land. If you have time, you should check out all 11 of the stories in this issue (they are all flash — it won’t take you that much time!), but if you don’t have time to read them all, I do want to point out to you “Four Liars” by my writing group mate, Alex, and “The Scorpion-Charmer’s Daughter” by Gay Degani, a regular commenter on this blog.

My story in this issue is called “The Last Ball at Concord House.” When K.C. invited me to submit a story for this issue, I wasn’t sure what tack to take on the librarian theme. I really wanted to write a story about Sarah Kirby, the main character from “The Widow and the Stranger,” as she seemed like just the type of woman this theme was meant to embrace. Howeer, Sarah is a shopkeeper on vacation, not a librarian, so I nixed that idea.

Then my writing group had its monthly prompts contest, and one of the prompts was to write a story about the belle of the ball who had a secret. I got this image of a librarian crashing a high society ball while trying to conceal the fact that she is a mere librarian, and suddenly, I was off a running on “The Last Ball at Concord House.”

Of course, the story needed an element of the fantastic, as well, so I mixed in a little of one of my favorite supernatural elements (the one that gives me the most cold chills), and the story came together (with a little post-first-draft help from my writing group).

If you read tLBaCH, I’d love to know what you think of it. You can leave a comment here on this blog, or you can leave a comment over at 10Flash.

Again, congrats to K.C. for putting together a really great first issue, and congrats to all the contributing authors. I haven’t had time to read all of them yet, but I can’t wait to do so!

Once again, my writing group is challenging itself to write a story every day for two weeks in the month of June. Last year, I got several good stories out of the SED contest, some of which were published. I wrote a lot of dreck, as well, but that always happens with a challenge of this sort. You have to write through the dreck to get to the good stuff. Any any amount of good stories makes the goal worth attempting!

Hopefully, this will be the challenge that I need to help my writing motiviation. I’m not sure I’ll have the same stamina for it that I had last year (I won the 2008 SED contest), but I’m looking forward to trying.

If you don’t see as much of me around here from 6/10 to 6/24, you’ll know that I’m (hopefully) slaving away on my daily story!

Good luck to all the Writer’s Ink members as they dive into this contest tomorrow. I hope we all get lots of good stories out of it!

In other news, if you’re looking for a fun story to read to pass the time, check out “Seaside Sideshow” by writing group mate Stephanie. It’s a unique take on the selkie myth. I tried my hand at a selkie story last year, but I think that hers is better! It’s up at Bewildering Stories.

And, if you’re looking for something to read that’s more informative but less fun (strictly speaking) check out writing group mate Jens’s blog article, “Korean Suicide Culture.” I don’t have any formulated thoughts to share on this yet, but reading about it really made me think.