My story "An Insurrection" is up today at Necessary Fiction. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this story a lot. I'm very happy to have finally placed it, and with such a great market -- big thanks to Steve Himmer for not only accepting it, but for helping me make it better -- yet something does worry me. You see, the story is about 2,000 words, one of the longest pieces of fiction I've published in the past year. If it were in a print magazine, I wouldn't be too worried, as longer fiction is suited for print magazines, but this story is online, and you know how people are with their short attention spans ... Anyway, please do check it out if and when you get the chance. Like I said, I like it a lot. Hopefully you will too.
March Madness Begins
Ever notice how in almost every magazine's writer's guidelines you'll find the ubiquitous phrase: "We want your best work." Like that's really going to stop writers from submitting shitty stuff. Or what -- are those writers with the shitty stuff only submitting to the markets that don't put that in their guidelines? Come to think of it, I think I even included that "we want your best work" line in the guidelines for the anthology. Obviously not many people followed that, but oh well.
Where am I going with this? I have no idea. But last week I saw a listing for a new print magazine that plans to publish in -- get this -- April. It pays twenty bucks. Thing is, this magazine doesn't have a website, at least not one I could find. Hmm, okay. I Googled the editor's name to see what would come up, but hardly anything did. So you have a brand new magazine that you hope to publish within two months but you don't have a website yet? How, exactly, are readers (let's assume of course there are people interested in not just buying a copy, but actually reading it) supposed to order? Yeah ... thanks but no thanks.
This of course begs the question: in today's modern era, does every writer need a website? Not necessarily, though some kind of web presence would be preferable. But a magazine or publisher -- do they need a website? Um, that would be a most definite yes.
Recently I borrowed a bunch of burned DVDs from a friend of mine. Last night my wife and I watched Hostage. Or tried to watch it. Everything was fine until the very last few minutes of the movie, where it skipped to the ending credits. Nothing I could do would give us those last few minutes. I'd seen the movie before, so I wasn't too bummed, but this was my wife's first time watching it and she wasn't a happy camper. Not after investing over an hour and a half into a movie and then being thwarted out of the last couple minutes. But I guess that's just a risk you take when watching burned DVDs. If you listen carefully, you can hear the FBI sniggering ...
By now I'm sure everyone's seen that post about a bunch of famous writers' ten rules for writing. My favorite from the whole bunch is Philip Pullman's:
My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work.
I have to smile every time I read that line. On a personal level I've found it to be more and more true lately, in terms of writing flash and short stories. I have fun writing them, I like having them accepted and then published, and I love when I hear from people who've read them. But honestly? It's all very distracting from bigger projects that actually carry more weight. Not that flash and short stories aren't important, but right now I need to focus on projects that will, hopefully, bring in some money. Not "proper work" yet by any means, but one can always dream.
I have some stories coming out this month, about four or five if I'm not mistaken. And looking at them, it seems these are all "realistic" stories. Or "traditional" stories. Or whatever you want to call them. Basically, if you like your stories weird and off-beat and speculative, you'll have to look elsewhere. You ain't gonna find 'em here (or wherever they're published).
The first is up today at Emprise Review. It's called "Point of View." It appears along with stories by Gay Degani and a bunch of other writers you probably recognize. My thanks to Roxane Gay and Patrick McAllaster for being kind enough to publish the piece. Later this week I'll write a bit more about where the story came from, but for now, enjoy.
An "Incomplete" Contest
The Best of Every Day Fiction Two is now available, which features my story "Incomplete" along with 99 other fine stories published last year at Every Day Fiction. I'm honored to have been included. My thanks to Jordan Lapp, Camille Gooderham Campbell, and Steven Smethurst for not just putting together this collection of stories, but for keeping EDF running strong into the future. You can order a copy of the anthology here; it comes in two formats, trade paperback and hardcover.
Or, if you'd like to test Lady Luck, you can win a free copy signed by me.
In the past, I've asked readers to put something in the comments section of a post and then picked a random winner. This time around I've decided to mix things up. This particular contest will be strictly done via Twitter.
I like Twitter a lot. It's a great platform when used correctly. The best part about it is you can get information out to a large amount of people very quickly. And how is this done? Why, by the almighty retweet button, of course.
So here's what I'm going to do. Some time Monday I will post something on Twitter (you'll be able to tell when it's for the contest). All I'm asking is for you to retweet that particular post (preferably the "new" version retweet, as it'll be easier to track). The contest will end Tuesday at midnight here on the east coast. Then I'll pick a random winner from everyone who retweeted and announce it here Wednesday. That person will receive a free signed trade paperback copy of The Best of Every Day Fiction Two.
But wait -- there's more!
Right now I have almost 300 "followers" on Twitter. You have to figure that at least 90% of them are spambots. So that leaves about 30 people who are actually paying attention me. So if at least 30 people retweet my particular post (they don't even have to be "followers"), then I'll up the ante and send the winner a signed hardcover copy instead.
Yes, yes, there is the chance that nobody retweets, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. In the past year I've been playing around with different forms of self-promotion, and maybe this will work, maybe it won't. Guess we'll see come midnight Tuesday, huh?
Tights, A Cape, And Flying, Do Not A Superhero Make
My story "Superman's Dead" is up today at Monkeybicycle. It is another one of my stories written in the second person. I think it will eventually come to the point that all I write are stories in the second person.
Fun fact: I like to think my titles are usually pretty clever (or at least decent), but the original title for the story was the title of this blog post. Yeah, pretty bad, right? I can't believe I even subbed the story like that. But then one night I put in an old CD and -- bam! -- I knew what the new title had to be. So thanks to Our Lady Peace, and to Jessa Marsh and Steven Seighman for taking a chance on the story.
Ending The Year On A High Note
Back in April, Cooper Renner was kind enough to publish what is probably my strangest piece of flash (okay, hint fiction) called "The Amazing Adventures of © and ®." At the time, I had joked about doing a sequel. I'd had no intentions. The story was what it was and that was that. But then, as some stories do, the characters refused to die ... or, at least in this case, die quite yet.
The sequel is called "The Killer Inside ©" and is now live at Wigleaf. Major thanks to Scott Garson for taking a chance on this story.
(Also, how obvious is it I stole those story titles from two novels?)
Tomorrow will be my last post of the year, doing the cliched end-of-year thang. See you then.