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?

Enjoy the holiday

Time once again to stuff our faces and then sit in front of the television in a stupor.

Is it coincidence that a turkey's call is "gobble, gobble"?

I think not.

On the way to submissions

It was an eventful week; writing.

I sent off six stories; one of them is an ultra-short, just one hundred and twenty-eight words, but the rest are longer pieces than I have been attempting.

The longest, Coward's Steel, is almost five-thousand words. It's post-holocaust fantasy that went to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, a market I would love to crack.

Getting them ready for submission, I was reminded of inspecting my children, before sending them off to school.

I had such high hopes, when the kids marched out the door, and I feel the same way about my fiction. You pray that their faces stay clean and nothing is misspelled; that their shirt-tails are tucked in and word choices are perfect.

And no matter how old they become, or how elusive success may be for them, you always believe that with just a bit more work, they can make the grade. My son and daughter are both bestsellers, so I expect my fiction will find its way into print, one way or another.

Anyway, I got e-mail back, almost right away, on two of those six stories.

Chris Bartholomew accepted A Bannockburn Night for the December issue of Static Movement; it is two-thousand words. And Frank Byrns, at A Thousand Faces, said yes to A Son of the Night; it weighs in at just under three-thousand words.

The first is a ghost story of sorts that takes place in 1948, upon the chill waters of Lake Superior; the second introduces Rory Mathersby and his alter ego, Gargoyle, Seattle's Gray Guardian. A Thousand Faces specializes in super hero fiction. It's a quarterly print publication, so Rory's story won't be available to read until sometime next year.

I also got a rejection notice this week that made me laugh.

The folks at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, an Australian pulp for speculative fiction, said no to This Little Piggie.

They said it was "a deliciously dark revisiting of a much loved tale". But they also said they "liked this joke the first time. And the second time too. And even the third. But ..."

They were right, of course; it is a retelling of the classic Pig Joke. You know the punchline; "A special pig like this one, you don't eat him all at once."

I am intrigued by the way jokes travel about, and so I was delighted to learn that one of my favorites had made the rounds down under.

Hope does jump back up, though. I'll find an editor somewhere who hasn't heard that punchline.

At Every Day Fiction

My flash fiction, Oh, Woman of Easy Virtue, is the featured story today at Every Day Fiction. If you can, click on the link and check it out. I hope you like it; I had fun writing it.

Bookwormed!

My friend, Gay, who blogs at Words in Place, sent me a Bookworm award and asked me to pass it on to other blogging buddies. I don’t usually participate in this sort of thing, but I have to admit that I am a bookworm; and it sounded fun.

Here is what I am supposed to do: open the closest book to you (not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment) to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence as well as the next two or three sentences. Pass this on to five blogging friends.

Okay; the closest book was Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff, who lives here in Seattle. Here’s the sentences from page 56.

The usual kind. Pot, of course, speed, Valium, coke on special occasions, acid when I needed a cheap vacation. I know that probably sounds like a lot, but at that point in my life I had it under control.

BTW, Bad Monkeys is a great read. It’s speculative fiction, with a heavy dose of paranoid conspiracy theory, told in the first person by a most unreliable narrator.

I’m going to pass this on to:

Erin at Living the Fictional Dream
Alex at Meanwhile ..
Sylvia at Can’t Backspace

And you three take note. If you don’t want to play, don’t worry about it. It’s cool, particularly if you don’t think there’s space in your blog for it.

The last part of the qualifier was aimed at Sylvia. For anyone who hasn’t visited her clever blog, pop over there now. You’ll understand my comment.

Going up

If you've never done this, as an experiment, try it.

Find an elevator system that gets lots of use. Wait for a car full of people, get in and then stand in the front of the car, with your back to the doors.

Watch how nervous the other passengers get. Most of them won't even realize why they are upset, but I guarantee you will see the symptoms. Lots of eye movement. Shoulder and arm twitches. Foot shuffling.

Now turn it up a notch. Stare at someone; better yet, look from person to person, studying them. You might get a verbal reaction on this one, from a polite "May I help you?" to an aggressive "What are you looking at?"

Ramp it up some more. Spout nonsense. Don't talk directly to anyone, just talk. Loudly. People will be jumping off the elevator at the next opportunity, even if it isn't their floor.

You are violating elevator etiquette: move to the back; face forward; don't look at anyone else; don't talk, unless it's to someone you know, and then speak in hushed tones.

Unless you have never been on an elevator in your life, you know the rules as well as I do, but consider this. When did you learn them? Who taught them to you? Only the Shadow knows for sure, but there is a science devoted to the study of such things.

It's called Proxemics and it examines how people perceive and use space, alone or in groups, particularly tight spaces, such as an elevator. Watch for the signs the next time you're on an elevator.

It may not be polite to break those unwritten rules, but it sure is fun!

Over there

I bought a paper poppy from an old man last night. He was sitting outside the Safeway, alone, wearing a campaign jacket older than I am and an American Legion cap. The sign on the easel beside him read: Remember Veterans' Day on November 11. Buy a poppy.

There was room on the bench beside him, so I sat for a time and we talked.

He told me his name was Walter, said that he would be eighty-five come February. I asked if he had fought in World War II. He glanced at me as if to say, "What a stupid question." But he never said the words. He was polite, as men his age tend to be.

"I was on Normandy Beach on D-Day," he said. "Just twenty years old."

I told him my father, who will be eighty-eight in March, fought in World War II, as well. In the Army Air Corps. A turret gunner on a bomber crew.

"Uh huh," Walter said. "Well, he might have got shot at, but nobody was shooting just at him, were they?"

I had to agree that he had a point. When I got up to leave, he thanked me for buying the poppy and I thanked him. I didn't have to say for what. He knew.

If you haven't already, thank a veteran today for what he did for you. Even better, find a World War II veteran. It may take some time. There aren't that many of them left.

A bottleful of silly

The folks at Every Day Poets have accepted another of my poems, Witches' Brew. It's an homage to Shakespeare, my take on the infamous witches' chant from MacBeth. You remember: Round about the cauldron go; in the poisoned entrails throw.

Oonah, Nicholas and Constance, the EFP editing staff, said they thought Witches' Brew was amusing and playful. I like to think that Will would have approved. As a fillip, I structured the poem so that in print, its outline is that of a stoppered bottle.

I'll post a link when it's published.

At Every Day Poets

If you can, stop in at Every Day Poets. My poem, Murphy's Flaw, is featured today; it tells the tale of Obadiah Murphy, a competitive drinker of gargantuan appetites and capacity. I think it's pretty funny, but then I wrote it.

And I will apologize now to those of you who don't care for meter and rhyme. Stop back another day; the site offers great poetry for every taste.

Goin' frisson

I write because I am compelled to do so.

I read for more reasons than I can list. To pass the time. For recreation. To take my mind away from a bad place. To educate myself.

One of the most important reasons I read is to experience the frisson that occurs when I discover that someone thinks or feels the same way I do.

I just read this: Some days, I feel like a hummingbird duct-taped to a fence.

Amen! And thank you.

The election -- in passing

My grandpa used to say that time moves along.

My son called from Ohio today. We chatted about this and that, mostly about movies and writing, and then he mentioned how excited Dylan, my grandson, is about our new president elect.

"He went to the polls with me yesterday," my son said. "I let him push the button."

He said they had campaigned for Obama, too.

"We like what he stands for, what he says," my son said. "And he's only seventeen years older than I am."

And I remembered how excited I was, sixteen years ago, when I discovered that Bill Clinton and I were only months apart in age; finally, a president I could relate to.

Grandpa was right.

The Best of Every Day Fiction - Year One

I just got the news that Hair of the Dog was selected as one of the top one hundred stories to appear in Every Day Fiction during its first year of operation.

The anniversary was September first. A print anthology of the stories is in the works and should be available by Christmas.

Some of my favorite EDF authors have stories in the collection, too.

There's Remember from Erin M. Kinch and Aftershocks from Alex Burns. Bill Ward has two stories included; Junkyard Rats in my favorite.

And then we get to the heavy hitters.

There are three tales from Dave MacPherson, a member of the Every Day Fiction Writers' Group; my favorite is Forbidden Planet. Gay Degani also has three stories and hand's down my favorite is Spring Melt.

Kevin Shamel, Sarah Hilary and Oonah V. Joslin (who is so prolific she makes Issac Asimov look a slacker) each are represented in the collection by four stories. And they are all so good, it's impossible to pick just one as favorite.

I don't know how Jordan and Camille did it. Kevin had eight stories appear over the twelve months; if I had been selecting stories for the collection, I would have included all eight.

Anyway, I'll post when the book is available. Watch for it, buy it, enjoy it!