Living the Fictional Dream

Head on over to Every Day Fiction today and read the story of the day written by my writing group mate Jens. It’s a fun romp, and if you haven’t read the first B&D novella, it’s linked in his EDF bio. You should check that out, too.

Happy reading, and happy Friday!

For a brief moment, “A Castle in the Clouds” is in a top 10 list at Every Day Fiction. Nice thing to wake up to. Must be because of all the voting you guys did — thanks!

If you head over to EDF today, make sure you check out today’s story — “Double Virginity” by Kevin Shamel. Science fiction with a twist — it’s a great read.

Part 1 of a sci-fi novella by my writing group mate Jens is live on SpaceWesterns.com. It’s called “Corazon,” and it’s action packed. I know… I critted it! Dixie O’Dell is a kick-butt lady, too, which is always great. Check it out–you’ll be glad you did!

My writing group mate, Stephanie, has a new story out at The Cynic. Naked Confusion is the title, and its short and surreally funny. You should check it out!

This has been a great week for me! “The Dragon Thief” was published, and I’ve had two more stories accepted — one by A Thousand Faces and one by Perpetual Magazine. I’m really excited by both of these acceptances. The story I sent to ATF was one that I came up with on the spur of the moment, and ended up working out better than I had ever hoped. The one accepted by PM is a story I wrote quite a while ago and had about dispared of ever finding a home for. And the PM editor said such nice things in the acceptance email. What a great week!

And in honor of what a good week this has been, I’m going to share more links with you. Hopefully, y’all will find something here that piques your interest!

First, if you like flash, you need to go check out “Visions of Hummus-cide” at Bewildering Tales by Stephanie, one of my writing group pals. If you weren’t a hummus-convert after Buffy the Vampire Slayer (”Attack the Mayer with hummus. … He’ll never see it coming.”), this story will bring you over to the cause.

Next up is the mid-June issue of All Things Girl. The update includes part two of their interview with Stephanie Meyer (author of the Twilight series and The Host — which, if you haven’t read them yet, you definitely need to).

And here’s a fun one for all you writers out there — The Random Title Generator. If you’re out of creative ideas, try some of these automatically generated titles on for size. Perhaps you’ll create your next great story after being inspired by titles like “Shakespeare, As Written by a Dinosaur,” “My Friends Call Me Fuzzy Banana,” and “Always Share Your Moonlight”!

Finally, if you want to find out what’s going on in the world of television, you should check out my two favorite TV columnists over at TV Guide’s website: Matt Roush and Michael Ausiello. When Matt recommends something, I always know to pay attention, and Michael always has the latest scoops and a smattering of spoilers. However, apparently Michael is actually leaving TV Guide, so you’ll have to check him out there fast!

And I’m out… for today. Happy clicking!

Today is a day for sharing. Hopefully, you’ll find these links as fun and/or interesting as I do!

First of, I want to give a shout out to Alex, one of my fellow writing group members. He wrote a flash fiction mystery, and it went live on Every Day Fiction this morning.

Second, Jens, another Writer’s Ink member, has redesigned his blog. Check it out. The new graphics are awesome. My favorite is the space ship, but the dinosaur is cool, too. Apparently, the preferred viewing browser is Firefox. Also of note, Jens is going to start putting original flash fiction on his site regularly, so that will be worth checking out!

Here is the link to mystery author Carole Nelson Douglas’s website. If you enjoy mysteries, genre-bending, and strong female protagonists, you should definitely check out her books. And I’m only slightly biased from the fact that I worked as her personal assistant for three years during college and early grad school! (Talk about having one’s eyes opened to what the real life of a midlist author is like!) If you enjoy urban fantasy, I highly recommend her newest series about a heroine with a mysterious past named Delilah Street. The first book is called Dances with Werewolves.

If you’re looking for something good to read in the speculative short story line, I’m going to point you over to Strange Horizons. I’m sure most of the short story writers who drop by heard of SH long ago, but I thought some of the nonwriters who pop by every now and then might be interested. SH is actually considered a professional market for short stories because of their pay rates, but you can read the stories there for free. I have read many interesting science fiction and fantasy short stories there, so it’s definitely worth a spin around the archives.

If you write, but you’re in need of some inspiration, you should check out my friend Melissa’s website, Cafe Writing.

If space westerns are your thing, you’ve got to take a look at SpaceWesterns.com. This site has quality short fiction. I’ve never been disappointed by a story there. Jens has a story there, and I really love some of the space westerns with female protagonists, like A Llama’s Tale and The Clone-Wrangler’s Bride.

Residential Aliens is a speculative fiction e-zine with a spiritual slant, which I know will appeal to some of my dozen blog readers. I particularly enjoyed the story “Morning Coffee.”

And, finally, in a departure from the writing theme, I want to recommend two blogs that focus on Fort Worth, my hometown. West and Clear includes notes about current events, Fort Worth news, and lots of current happenings. Occasionally, Stephanie, another Writer’s Inker, even contributes reviews. Fort Worthology focuses on urban development in Fort Worth, and is always chock full of the latest information on many of the construction sites around the city — especially those associated with “new urbanism” and the downtown area. Kevin, the author of FWology, is Writer’s Ink support staff. Kevin also includes a lot of his own urban photography on the site.

So, the next time you have some free time and need something to check out on the web, try one of these sites. You won’t be disappointed.

In a strange quirk of fate, just after I learned of the existance of The Fix (an e-zine that reviews short fiction and discusses writing) in the comments to my last post, I found out that the site published a review of the e-zine that includes my superhero story.

I had one other story (”Mutiny” in Sporty Spec) mentioned in a briefly in a review, but it was nothing to write home about. Lyndon Perry called “Zero to Clean” both “cute and quick” and “super flash fiction.” Reading this review made my day!

The review also had great things to say about my writing group members’ stories, “Auguste” and “Shades of Red.” Congrats Jens and Alex! If you haven’t perused the new issue of A Thousand Faces yet, what are you waiting for?

“Remember?” was the third story I had accepted and the second one to be published. Every Day Fiction is a really cool publication that sends a piece of flash fiction to your email inbox every day. “Remember?” was the story of the day for February 22, 2008.

Flash fiction is a complete story told in 1,000 words or less, so they are short and easily read in one sitting, like on your lunch break. From a writing perspective, telling a complete story with character development, character change, plot, etc., in such a limited word count is a big challenge, but it is a fun challenge. A stretch of the writing skills. And my first three acceptances were all flash — and, strangely enough, flash that I wrote randomly on the spur of the moment.

“Remember?” was the second piece of flash I was inspired to write instead of writing my 2007 NaNo novel (this was the first one). We were at my parents’ cabin, and I had this glimmer of an idea of a married couple talking about things from their life that hadn’t actually happened, but that they wished had happened — making up memories as they moved along in the conversation. And, thus, “Remember?” was born.

This is my first (and, so far, only) literary fiction that has been published. Usually, I write genre fiction, but I do have a couple of other literary pieces out there making the rounds.

If you’re a writer and you write flash, I highly recommend Every Day Fiction as a market. They only pay $1 per story, but if they accept your story you’ll get a lot of exposure out of the deal. Their concept is unique, and they have a large number of regular readers, both on their site and on their email list and RSS feed. They also have an active writer community/forum, and when your story is published you’ll get thoughtful feedback from other writers.

If you enjoy reading flash, I also recommend EDF. There are scads of stories there for the perusing, so there is enough to keep you reading for a while, and there are genres and topics for every preference. Of course, if you like my story, I’d love to know about it. And if you’re already there and looking for something else to read, check out the stories written by my fellow writing group members: Alex (Crush is one of EDF’s top 25 stories ever and he has a flash mystery, “Aftershocks,” coming out on EDF in May), Stephanie (”Brimstone and Liars” is also one of EDFs top 25), Virginia (”The Hole” is one of my favorites of hers), and Jens (”Socks and Banshees” is cute and fun).

Or running really fast, as the case may be!

One of these days, I will have a main page up with links to all my stories out there, but I think it’s fitting that each story have its own entry in the blog, as well. And maybe with a little info specifically about it.

“Zero to Clean in Ten Minutes or Less” was the second story I ever had accepted; though, thus far, it is the one I’ve waited the longest to see in print after acceptance. I got word that it would be published by A Thousand Faces in November of 2007 and it went live in the the spring issue in April 2008.

I wrote this story when I was supposed to be writing my 2007 NaNo novel (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated). Procrastination actually paid off for once — two flash pieces I wrote instead of that ill-fated and never-completed NaNo novel were actually published!

“Zero to Clean” had two inspirations — my husband, Stephen, and Smallville. There was this episode of Smallville where Clark had a party while his parents weren’t home and then went into super-mode to clean it up before they got back. I wondered — if you can clean at super speed, is it still as much work as it is for the rest of us? Or does Clark not mind having to clean alone, since it only takes in 30 seconds?

I started thinking about that again when Stephen was de-cluttering the house one day. He’s not “supersonic,” but he can de-clutter a house, do the dishes, etc., in record time. But I know that cleaning still annoys him, even though he has the uncanny ability to finish three chores while I’m doing one (I still don’t know how he does that!).

Both of those musings came together and “Zero to Clean in Ten Minutes or Less” was born. I will say, though, that the character of Liz is not taken from real life!

Eventually, the story will come down off the online version of A Thousand Faces, but the cool thing about this e-zine is that you can also buy print or .pdf versions from Lulu. So, if you miss it, you still have another chance, even though the ezine (unlike many) does not keep archives.

If you do head over to check out “Zero to Clean,” there are a couple of other stories you should check out while you’re there. The first is “Shades of Red” written by Alex Burns, and the second is “Auguste” written by Jens Rushing. Both are part of my writing group, Writer’s Ink, and masterful tale weavers.

And if you like “Zero to Clean,” definitely leave me a comment and let me know!