Saturday, November 29, 2008

Keeping my pencil sharp

I spent this week rewriting four stories that have been setting in the drawer for awhile; whittled them down from almost twenty thousand words, total, to just under sixteen thousand.

Writing flash fiction has done wonders for my understanding of what needs to be in a story and what is just my loose tongue and fingers. Four thousand words, and not a single one of the stories suffered. They are still the same tales; just tighter and better told.

I submitted all four; Toward Heaven Still, the longest at almost ten thousand words, went to Abyss & Apex. Its post-apocalyptic, set in what was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and is the tale of Apple Jack, an old man with a big green thumb and a small magic that shows him how all things fit together.

I've got acceptances back on two of them. Lyn Perry at Resident Aliens, took Anastasia, a two-hundred word piece of flash about a family reunion of sorts; Rick DeCost at The Absent Willow Review, a new venue, accepted And Bay the Moon, which suggests that jogging can be hazardous to your health.

I also got the nod from Jordan and Camille, who were so kind as to say yes to Upon the Doorsteps, my sixth acceptance at Every Day Fiction.

On the flip side, Abyss & Apex rejected Bringing in the Dead. They had nice things to say about it, but suggested that it "wanted to be a longer piece".

So, maybe not everything should be whittled down, hmm?