Living the Fictional Dream

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!

It’s been a good day in the writing arena. No, I didn’t actually write anything (fickle, fickle muse!), but I made other progress on my writing to-do list.

Last night, I submitted two stories — my first ones for 2009. This afternoon, in what has to be the fastest response on record (woo-hoo, Frank!), one of them was accepted. “Dinner for Three” will appear in a future issue of A Thousand Faces.

“Dinner for Three” could loosely be considered a sequel to “Bridge Club” (Editor’s Choice in ATF issue 6), so it’s fitting that it will appear in the same magazine. Also, I just love ATF because of its awesome superhuman fiction — if you haven’t read the latest issue, you should give it a go.

Then, this evening, I pulled out two more reprints and submitted them, as well. Go me! Making progress in 2009.

Have a great night everybody!

All the stories I have out on submission right now are ones that I sent out before NaNo last year. And some of these are ones that I sent out back last summer and have yet to hear back on — the kinds of submissions that you start to think you’re never going to hear back on.

This morning I actually heard back from one of those markets, and it was a real bummer. Well, rejections are always a bummer, but in this case more so than usual.

Why, you ask? (Or, if not, I’m going to tell you anyway!)

The market actually wanted to publish my story. It’s little ghost story that I wrote back when my writing group was doing the Story Every Day contest. I’ve liked this story since I first wrote it — it was my favorite thing I wrote during those two weeks of madness. Sadly, it has yet to find a home. And this time, it almost did!

The reason I hadn’t heard back yet was because they weren’t sure they were going to be able to continue publication of their ‘zine, so they didn’t want to have me sign a contract until they were sure. And, as luck would have it, it turns out they will not be able to continue publication. So, I got an apologetic “we liked it but…” rejection.

Now, there is some comfort in the fact that they liked it, don’t get me wrong. And I’m grateful to them for telling me what happened instead of just sending a form rejection after all this time. That was nice of them (though a little note a few months ago saying they were considering it or something would not have been amiss).

But ARG! How frustrating. I was so close to having it published, but due to bad timing it is not to be.

While I’m on vacation, one thing on my to-do list will have to be rounding up the most current drafts of all the stories that have been rejected since NaNo (and the ones that are out at markets who did not reply to my query notes!) and send them out to new places. Maybe I’ll be lucky and get a hit.

My little ghost story almost got a hit this time. Maybe the next market will be the one!

The other night, I had the most vivid dream. The dream was a scene right out of a story — a sci-fi/fantasy story (a story with mythical creatures set on an alien planet, to be specific) with some crazy world building.

The scene centered on two characters, male and female, having an interaction that changes both of their lives completely and irrevocably. The guy was a bit of a scoundrel (but with a good heart underneath) and the girl was sassy.

The scene grabbed hold of my imagination and wouldn’t let go until I wrote it down, which I did yesterday. That’s the first thing I’ve written since the holidays, so it felt good.

Sadly, the scene does not stand on its own. It seems that there is more to come in this duo’s story. But if I’m going to continue it, I’m going to have to do some serious world building. It might work as a short story, but part of me wonders if this is more a novel idea. I guess it would depend on what kind of plot developed for the hero and heroine.

My one concern is that the mythical creatures that this story/universe would center around is a type that already has at least one book series written about it. Well, there are actualy tons of novels written about this type of mythical creature, but there is one in particular that takes this type of creature into a more sci-fi twist. I wouldn’t want to come off as being derivative.

Then again, there are only so many ideas/creatures/plots out there in the world. Everything is derivative of something. In my opinion, it’s the trappings that you put on the story elements that give the story its unique personality and its own twist, that feeling of freshness. I can think of three mystery series right now that all deal with cats, and each one has a totally unique feel (thought Midnight Louie rules!). And I don’t even have to get started naming all the vampire books that are out there.

I may start playing around with this idea more seriously while I’m on vacation. I always find that vacations are a great time for writing. I get so much work done then… something about being in a new place, I suppose. Or not being at work!

In other news, when I went over to Every Day Fiction to read today’s story, I saw that “A Million Faces” is back on the top ten stories of all time list. Isn’t that wild? Talk about out of the blue… I wonder what happened. It’s the last one on the list, so I’m sure it won’t stay up there very long, but it gave me a happy to see it there again. I think this is the third time that it’s been up there. “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Kinght” is number 1 on the top stories list for the past 30 days, too, which is also cool.

Hope everyone has a lovely and productive day!

Every Day Fiction has released its table of contents for February, and it looks to be a very good line-up this month. I’m excited to read a lot of these stories, including ones writting by K.C., Kevin, and Gay!

And you’ll also be able to read my story, “Honor Bound,” on the 15th. What fun! It should be an interesting follow-up to Valentine’s Day. Stephen and I will actually be driving home from Sedona that weekend, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to post the link to the story, but I will do it as soon as I have regained Internet access.

My latest flash piece is up at Every Day Fiction today, and you should definitely check it out. It’s called “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Knight.” As always, you may wish to actually go read the story before you read the rest of this entry. It depends on how you feel about spoilers.

The best way to describe this story, I suppose, is a fairy tale with a twist. Last summer, Jamie, one of my writing group mates (as well as my sister!), brought a writing excercise to one of our lunch meetings. She brought a long list of titles that she’d created at this random title generator website, and the challenge was to write a story based on one of them. This story is the one that I wrote based on the title “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Knight.”

The voice of the narrator came to me all in a flash. I was thinking about a sleeping knight and why he would need care and feeding — of course, a magic spell! And then I was picturing poor Gavin, stuck in an enchanted sleep with no true love to waken him, and he’d become a lot in some merchant’s stall, a conversation piece to be sold to the highest bidder.

I seldom write in the second person — in fact, this might be my only second person POV story — but for this particular tale, it just flowed out of my pen this way. I think it works. I enjoyed writing from the point of view of the merchant woman. It was also fun imagining all the things for sale in her shop. I see her as a opportunist — some of her merchendise is genuine, like dear Gavin, but she’s not above selling a few frogs and claiming that one might be a prince in disguise.

If you head over to EDF to read the story, I would appreciate it if you took the time to vote in the star ranking. That’s what spurs stories onto the Top 10 lists. And comments — either there or here — are always great. I love knowing what everyone thinks of my stories.

I hope you have as much fun reading this one as I did writing it!

And, while you’re clicking about reading fiction online, you should check out the new issue of The Rose and Thorn, which includes writing group mate Stephanie’s reprinted story, “Brimstone and Liars.”

Thanks for all the votes on “Fortune Cookies,” guys. For a brief and shining moment, it’s cracked both top stories lists at EDF — top 10 in the past 30 days and top 10 of all time. I’m sure that latter won’t last long — my stories appear there for a while and then drop off — but it’s always nice while it lasts.

Part of me really wants to write today. I’m feeling that creative urge. Sadly, I left my latest work-in-progress at the office, so I would either have to start over on it or wait on it until after my vacation. Bummer! And I don’t have the brain power to start something new this morning (yes, it’s still technically morning for 13 minutes in my time zone!). I was awakened at midnight last night and couldn’t get back to sleep until 4 a.m., so this morning, I’m a zombie, good for little other than surfing the net or playing Settlers of Catan on the X-Box.

This keeps happening this holiday season — me being woken in the middle of the night (either by people being loud or playing the piano at ungodly hours or by something I’m stressing about) and then being unable to get back to sleep for hours and hours. **sighs**

On the plus side, still over a week of vacation left. That is a good thing!

 

Wow… I can’t believe how long it’s been since I posted here. Sorry, guys! The last push at work and the overwhelming task of getting ready for Christmas (not to mention hosting Christmas Eve mass at my house and celebrating my husband’s birthday on Monday) took over everything!

Well, to celebrate Boxing Day, you can read a new story from yours truly over at Every Day Fiction. It’s called “Fortune Cookies.” It’s a fun little flash piece that I wrote on a lark, and I was thrilled that EDF decided to pick it up. You can vote on it there (please do!), and leave a comment there if you want. You can also leave a comment here to let me know what you thought.

The following will be somewhat spoilerish if you haven’t read the story yet. Just warning you.

A few years ago, I got a fortune that actually said I would get my heart’s desire. I carried it in my wallet for a long time, because if there was some place to cash that in, I wasn’t going to miss out! I think it’s lost now — victim of a purse swap or something — but I kept that thing for several years. That was the inspiration for this story — the girl in this story, finally gets to do what I never got to do, turn in her fortune and claim her heart’s desire.

As long as I was writing about fortune cookies, I had to get all of the traditions in there. Especially the classic “in bed” and “then you die” bits.

So, I hope y’all enjoy this little piece of light-hearted fun to celebrate your Boxing Day. And a belated Merry Christmas to everyone!