Monthly Archives: September 2013

Week 39! A quiet week to end September, and I’m grateful for that. The whole house (all of us, minus the pets) had some form of end-of-summer cold, to varying degrees.

I’m so glad the Flash Fiction Challenge was last week. I had an automatic submission for this week and plenty of time to peck my way through a new story.

This week I played around with a Puss in Boots retelling for a call for submissions I discovered. By doing so, I filled up the last pages of my notebook. My daughter was paging through it, somewhat amazed that I had filled in every single page, and asked: “How do you think of so many stories to write?”

I told her I didn’t know. And actually, my best writing happens when I don’t think, or at least, not too hard.

Writing:

• Puss in Boots retelling ~ 2,000 words

Submissions:

• Five to Freedom

Rejections:

• Alliance

Acceptances:

• None

Week 37! More big news this week. Ghost in the Coffee Machine will be part of the COFFEE: Caffeinated Tales of the Fantastic anthology, due out later this year (in time for the holidays)!

My write 1 for the week was another flash challenge assignment, which was:

Open/ A rooftop / press-on fingernails

I came in at 2,000 words or so. Not quite a flash, and I’m thinking this story needs a bit more, but I really like where it ended up, press-on fingernails and all, so there’s that.

In fact, I counted up the number of draft stories I have and it came out to nine. Nine! This does not include the story with the glass eye. Yeah, that one probably isn’t making it out of my notebook.

I have four draft stories in electronic form and five still in my (paper) notebook. I need to carve out a little time and get the rest of those stories into electronic form so I can start sending them out.

Writing:

• What Little Remains ~ 2,000 words

Submissions:

• Alliance
• Straying from the Path
• Rules for Visiting Hades ~ an old story submitted to a journal doing a “resurrection issue”. They want stories from defunct markets that are not currently archived online. This story fit the bill (in those terms–it may not be to the journal’s taste).  

Rejections:

• Straying from the Path ~ an “almost for us” rejection from Daily Science Fiction. Oh, so close! Back out it goes.  
• Filling the Space

Acceptances:

• Ghost in the Coffee Machine ~ will be published in COFFEE: Caffeinated Tales of the Fantastic. Out later this year! Pre-order early! Pre-order often!