What happened in February?

Happy March! We got about a foot of snow to welcome the month with! Wouldn't it be nice if that didn't happen? I got a snow day, anyway.

My story "A Thing With Feathers" that I talked about in my January post is now live on the Mythic Delirium website!

ALSO!  A.C. Wise reviewed "A Thing With Feathers" in her "Words for Thought" column posted by Apex Magazine , and I think wrote some very good and thoughtful things on the piece. I appreciate both her review and the understanding of my story that she possesses!

In other fiction news, the acceptance that I mentioned is my story "Surveillance Fatigue", which is currently scheduled to go live at Escape Pod on April 12! It will be available there in both text and audio, so if listening to stories isn't your jam, you can still take it in.

I wrote one short story in February, tried furiously to finish it for the Sword & Sonnet deadline so I could sub a second story, and then realized, first, that it was 1500 words too long and there wasn't any way I was going to cut it down in time and second, it kind of didn't fit the theme anymore anyway? So I only subbed one story to that anthology, which was rejected, but sent on to the next market! So we march on ever hopeful, etc.

Fireside Magazine is opening for submissions in April, from April 23-April 27 (and with a  limit of 4k words!), and I know what I'm going to send them.

Interestingly, "too long" is not a story problem I tend to have. Many (most?) of my shorts are between 1500 and 3k words, with some reaching upwards of that, at 5k, and a couple of random novellas. It does make submissions interesting, though, if your story is too long for one venue and too short for another one. Submission guidelines are an important thing to pay attention to, friends!

Writing in January (lots of deadlines!)

It's February already (or finally, depending on how your January went!)

My short story "A Thing With Feathers" is live on Mythic Delirium's website! You can also get the entire issue on Amazon or Weightless Books if that's more your style (no physical magazine, alas).

I finished three stories in January. One of them was something I'd started last year and messed around with a lot, trying to figure out point of view (first? close third? omniscient?) and tense (past? present?) and finally I was able to bring it home. The other two I wrote for submission calls, and have already been rejected for those anthologies. On one hand, that's a letdown. On the other hand, I really like it when responses are prompt. It means I'm not waiting for months. It means I can send another story. Or write another story, depending on how specific what they want is (Sword & Sonnet is pretty specific).

I also got an acceptance in January! They'd held the story for awhile, and also kindly let me send an updated version of it (of course I figured out a better way to end it after submission) and I'm very excited to announce this one when I'm able! I think projected publication date is April, so stay tuned, space cowboys.



Some recommended listening when you read "A Thing With Feathers" (I wrote the story before I ever heard this song or heard of Meg Myers, but it's a good fit!)