Living the Fictional Dream

I recently received my first rewrite request from an editor. The story I submitted was a flash piece about a selkie. I would love to place this piece, so I will definitely attempt the rewrite. I wonder if I can get a first pass done before my maternity leave is over next week?

I appreciated that the editor’s request explicitly stated what they think the problem is with the piece so I know what needs to be addressed. And, I must admit, I agree with the editor. The basic problem is that the main character needs to have more at stake, more conflict, in the story. As it stands, the main character is more reactive than proactive — something I have to watch for in my writing. I did go back and try to give the main character in this piece a character change after her selkie encounter, but apparently that was not enough.

Now, I must ponder where to go next with this story… At least there is no restriction to keep it flash. The market in question accepts stories up to 4,000 words. I don’t plan to use that many, but adding more to the main character will probably require more words than I have left for it still to be considered flash.

Head on over to Every Day Fiction and check out my flash piece, “Frigid.” It was the story of the day on August 21st, so I’m a little late in posting the link here. There were some technical difficulties with the original release, though, which caused missing text. Now, however, thanks to Camille at EDF, the story has been reposted in full.

This story is set in my superhero universe — the same universe as my stories in A Thousand Faces (”Zero to Clean in Ten Minutes or Less,” “Bridge Club,” and “Dinner for Three,” which is forthcoming).

The story was inspired by a prompt from my writing group’s monthly contest. The prompt was to write about ice with the bonus challenge of writing about it in an unusual way. I wanted to make ice my main character.

If you enjoy the story, EDF allows you to comment and vote on it. You can also comment here. I’d love to know what you think.

A post I originally published on this blog has been accepted as a 2-part blog entry over at EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles. You can read it here and here. And while you’re there, stick around and read some of the other entries. There is some good stuff over there.

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.

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!

I didn’t end up actually writing at my writing group’s write-in last night (hmm… how many times can I get a form of the word “write” into one sentence?). But, I’m pleased with the way I spent my two hours.

I dug back into my pool of rejected stories and found new markets to target them to. My writing group makes goals for writing-related tasks that we will hold each other accountable for accomplishing between meetings. My goal for the next meeting was to submit a story. I did one better last night and submitted two. Go me!

Lack of writing (be that because of work, the baby, or just a stellar lack of motivation) is one reason that my publications have tapered off so since January. But, the other reason is that I have not kept on top of my rejections. The best thing to do is get a rejection and send the story right back out again (or, if needed, revise and then submit again, depending of the story). It’s important to keep stories in circulation!

Add these two stories to the two that I submitted at the end of May, and now I have four stories making the rounds again. It’s definitely progress! Perhaps the end of the year will hold a few more publications for me than the beginning has. If one of the four were accepted, I would call it a win.

And, in the meantime, no matter what happens with those four stories, I do have two upcoming publications to look forward to. I will have a story (”The Last Ball at Concord House”) in the first issue of 10Flash later this summer, and one of the later issues of A Thousand Faces this year will feature a superhero short story that I wrote last year (”Dinner for Three” — a story that can loosely be termed a sequel to “Bridge Club”).

Oh, and speaking of superhero fiction, the new issue of A Thousand Faces is available, and it features an amusing flash piece from writing group mate, Jens. It is even set in Fort Worth! Give it a look when you have some time.

Happy writing and submitting, every one!

This is a little belated, but last week one of my archived posts from this blog was reprinted over at EDF’s Flash Fiction Blog. It’s called “Excuses, Excuses,” and originally appeared here last July. Head on over and take a look. And, while you’re there, read some of the other recent blog entries. Jordan wrote an interesting one on dialog-only stories, K.C. contributed one about common story ideas, and there are quite a few other interesting reads, as well. This is a very informational and helpful blog if you write fiction — flash or otherwise.

Sorry I’ve been M.I.A. in the blog-o-sphere lately. The craziness keeps increasing. I guess it will be that way until the baby makes her appearance (estimated at the end of August). My husband and I have been/will be booked every weekend between Memorial Day and the end of June! Trips home, attending weddings (3 in June!), helping my sister move (well, he did that last weekend — I supervised and fetched lunch!), and baby showers. It’s all fun and/or important stuff, but leaves little time on the weekends for writing or blogging. Add to that a huge slew of projects at work that have to get done before I go on maternity leave and all the house projects we want to complete before the baby comes (finishing the nursery paint job, new carpet in the nursery, putting together baby furniture), and I’m definitely feeling the pressure.

However, I am looking forward to my writing group’s write-in this week. Those are always fun, and I know I’ll have at least a couple of hours that I can devote only to writing. It will be a nice change of pace from the hectic day-to-day.

I hope everyone else is having a less hectic time than I am, and that you all have ample time to pound away on those works in progress! Happy writing, everyone!

Sorry for disappearing on you guys for a week. I caught this horrible crud last week and it laid me low for a long time. I’m only just now finally feeling sort of normal and getting back into the swing of work, and I’m still suffering from the lingering cough and runny nose. It really sucks being sick when you’re pregnant — you’re not allowed any of the good meds!

But, enough about that boring stuff. Let’s talk about writing.

When I logged into my email account after having been down for so long, I was rewarded with one acceptance and one rejection. It was nice that they balanced each other out!

A very strange story (about superheroes and vomit, of all things) was rejected. I wasn’t surprised. There were some really stomach churning descriptions in there (yes… I wrote it under the influence of first trimester morning sickness!). Now I have to look at it again (if I can find the stomach for it) and see if there is something revisable in that mess. I liked it at the time, but now… I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s because I’m now past all that nausea?

On the happier side of things, I wrote a little ghost story flash called “The Last Ball at Concord House,” and it will be published in the inaugural issue of 10Flash. I’m excited about that — it’s really neat to be part of a brand new ‘zine. And congrats to K.C. for all the work she’s been putting into it! I think it’s going to be a really fun publication!

And, speaking of K.C., if you’re interested in writing flash, you should read this post over on her blog. I enjoyed it a lot.

Finally, this is a little late, but my writing group mate Alex had a story published on Every Day Fiction earlier this week. It’s called, “The Squeeze.” It’s very short, and the ending will make you laugh.

Pop on over to Every Day Fiction’s Flash Fiction Blog today to read my post on how writing flash fiction can help aspiring novel writers (or at least, how it helped me). And, while you’re there, check out some of the previous great posts.

Check it out! I’ve got a new story out today in Afterburn SF. It’s called “Not Your Kind of Heathen,” and it’s a vampire story with a Christian twist.

This is the first story I wrote about Rachel the vampire hunter. It took me a while to get the back story right, but in the end, I really like this version. I’ve written another story or two about Rachel and her cursed family, but nothing that’s publishable yet.

The inspiration for this story came from a conversation my mother and I had about the TV show Supernatural. She really liked the show, but bothered her that they never addressed the God side of the equation. For example, if one of the Winchesters was a Christian, then he couldn’t be possessed because if Jesus lives in your heart then no demon can take up residence. (Obviously, we had this conversation before the current season of the show started airing, which actually does start to address God and angels.)

Well, the conversation got my mind ticking, and I was inspired to write a story that was gritty and supernatural, but that also upheld my Christian believes. And the first version of “Not Your Kind of Heathen” was born (then with the lame title of “The Call”).

This story also has the mark of being the one that marked my serious pursuit of marketing short stories. After I finished it and had it critted by my writing group, I submitted it to two different anthologies. I was really hopeful for one of the two, which the story seemed perfect. It was an anthology that wanted Christian genre fiction, but it’s focus was on gritty, hard-boiled fiction that didn’t pull punches just because it was Christian. Sadly, that version of the story got rejected. Though, the editor did say that with a rewrite he would be willing to consider it if they ever did another anthology.

I reworked the story, clarifying Rachel’s background and why she was so pissed at God, as well as fine-tuning the action sequences and trimming down the plot, and started submitting it on a wider scale, and it found a home at Afterburn SF. They actually bought this story nearly a year ago. I think this now surpasses “Zero to Clean in Ten Minutes or Less” as the story I have waited the longest for between acceptance and publication.

If you enjoy the story, leave me a comment and let me know. I’ve considered trying to write more Rachel the vampire hunter stories, if the right idea struck me. There is also a link here where you can discuss the story on ASF’s Facebook site, though there is not an official thread for my story yet.

Have a great (and vampire free) weekend!