Happiness! The short story I worked on like mad a few weeks back, Firebird’s Embrace, has been accepted by Emerald Tales for their June issue, themed ‘Midsummer’s Eve’.

I believe it releases on June 15th; you can purchase the print edition from the website, or read it for free online (a change from previous editions).

It seems to me that I work much better on a strict deadline (big surprise)… and I had felt quite unsure about this one, so it’s a happy surprise!

Anyone else have some good news to share? Or bad news… sometimes it’s cathartic to share that too.

For the first time ever… my name is in print, instead of disappearing behind a cloud of SEO or ghostwritten articles. Yay! Exciting! I hope it happens more often!

Emerald Tales: Winter Solstice Special Issue

My story was picked up by the small press publisher Emerald Tales, and is available in their Winter Solstice Special Issue (scroll down to Volume One, Special Three) — which you can purchase on this page!

The story is historical fiction, though since it’s set in ancient times it got slotted into the fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal/horror issue… which I certainly don’t mind! The tagline chosen for my story is: “A priestess does what she must to save her lover”… suspense! drama! conflict! ancient Babylon! You want to read it, right?

But you might also be wondering… don’t I write novels? What happened to that? Well, it’s a simple explanation.

Just this past summer, I decided to try my hand at short stories, as I thought it might be a good idea to try and build at least a few credits to my name before sending out larger pieces to agents/publishers… I want to prove myself in the small markets before going for the whole gamut with a novel, as it were.

I’m not saying it’s the best route for everyone, but I felt it was something I needed to do (and need to continue to do) to not only build my resume, but also my confidence. And, it’s a great way to stretch those writing skills, because when it comes to short stories, every word must count.

So, for those of you who go ahead and clicky-click to purchase the issue of Emerald Tales, thank you so much for your support! And for those of you who aren’t able to and prefer to offer encouragement in other ways, thank you for your support and encouragement too! It’s a great feeling to see your name in print, no matter how small the press, and I wish it wholeheartedly for the rest of you as well!!!

Now… time to start racking up the rejections in 2010! We have a brand new year ahead of us, people, let’s get subbing!

…to 70,000 words on WIP #1. So close… and yet, so far to go even after I hit that target. All things considered, it’s not too bad – 70,000 words is still 70,000 words to work with, and with another 20k tacked onto that, I’ll have a full-fledged first draft to rip to shreds. It’ll be great. I already know several areas that are targeted for complete and entire rewrites, but I know that if I go back to them right now, I’ll spend too much time trying to polish and not enough time actually finishing the darn novel.

Finishing is step #1. Tearing into it like a ravenous squirrel is step #2.

That said, I’ve had a few “oh crap, only 500 words” days in a row, but at least it’s something.

Still not entirely sure what the final scene will be, or how I’ll wrap it up neatly, but that’s not really a concern for draft one. Or so I keep telling myself. Then again, I also keep telling myself I don’t need any more coffee, but has that ever stopped me?

Results are in for the WritersWeekly.com Fall 24-Hour Short Story Challenge! I didn’t win (I didn’t expect to), but I read the winning entries and now have a better idea of how to craft my story for next time.

The biggest bonus for me was reading over the list of common themes throughout the submissions… only to find that I didn’t fall into any of the categories, which means that I was original in my idea, or at least to some degree. I think my fatal flaw was straying a bit from the topic, which I can see after reading the winning stories.

Another challenge is being run in January 2009, and seeing as how the entry fee is only $5… I think I’ll have another go.

Today I was walking through the aisles upon aisles (upon aisles…) of Halloween costumes and supplies at our local Value Village, and found myself faced with a significant amount of “fairy” outfits. Among these were costumes for an ‘evil fairy’, a ‘demon fairy’, a ‘copper fairy’ (what the…?), a ‘goth fairy’…

Now, don’t get me wrong – at a basic level, I’m impressed that the majority of adult fairy costumes actually attempt to correctly represent original faerie nature, before the dumbing down that began in Victorian England and cemented itself in Disney lore.

How is this relevant to writing in ANY way? Well, I’m so glad you asked.

You see, this year’s NaNoWriMo topic falls into the realm of the fay in Ireland. Yes, I’m writing a fairy story… but with real faeries. I’ve noticed a number of authors taking this direction lately, and it’s heartening. However, I want to write my own.  And so, we come to the point of convergence with Value Village costumes.

One of the threads on the NaNo forums is called ‘Let’s all dress up like our MCs on Nov.1st!!!’, to which I posted something along the lines of “fat chance, my MC is a 9-year-old boy”. However, the faerie queen will play a significant part within the story, something which just so happened to occur to me as I walked the aforementioned aisles…

No, I didn’t end up purchasing a costume. Yes, I did carry one around the store with me for about 40 minutes as I looked at other things, only putting it down at the last minute when I began to feel slightly doubtful that I would actually use it more than once.

But who I am kidding. A dress with wings? That’s got year-round written all over it.

I may go back tomorrow.

…but then again, when isn’t it? To be honest, I have no idea. Until this past weekend, I hadn’t entered a writing contest since… well, since grade 2. I won, mind you, but that was then (“this is now, this is Stouffer’s, ooh ooh”).

Old Maritime commercials aside, this weekend I entered the Writer’s Weekly Fall 2008 24-Hour Short Story Contest – sort of on a whim, sort of as a challenge to myself. I wanted to force myself to produce something creative under pressure, since I tend to have problems getting anything done without some kind of pre-arranged structure.

Now that it’s all said and done, it was a pretty good experience and I’m glad I tried it. The results (ie. who won) won’t be in until the end of the month, but this time around, it wasn’t really about winning. Next time, perhaps. This time I just wanted to see if I could do it. I managed to write the story fairly quickly once the topic was released, but I ended up spending hours and hours editing the thing, trying to cut it down to the 850 word limit. I started with 1200 words, and thought “that’s not bad, I can edit that down”… naturally, I didn’t realize how difficult it can be to remove 400 words of a very short story, since in short stories, every word needs to be crucial to begin with. I think I got 3 hours of sleep that night.

The next contest with Writer’s Weekly runs January 23rd.

In terms of the next contest that I’ll be entering for sure (hah) is probably one of the Writer’s Digest competitions. They run a number of variously themed contests throughout the year, and the genre fiction short story deadline is coming up fast. I’ll keep you posted on my progress…