I love the smell of a sale in the morning

I know I keep hammering away at the importance of persistence, but damn it, it’s important. Here’s one more example.

The Maple Leaf Maneuver is a snarky bit of fun that uses Canada’s recent changes it its Citizenship Law as a jumping off point. It’s one of those stories that if you asked how much of it is true, I would have to say all of it — except for the parts that I made up.

Anyway, I sent it off awhile back to a flash fiction contest. The results were announced early last week and my name wasn’t on the list. ::sigh::

But I knew it was a good story, so instead of sitting around, trying to figure out why I had failed and feeling sorry for myself, I sent it off right away to Every Day Fiction.

Managing Editor Camille Gooderham Campbell e-mailed me early today — a five-day turnaround — to say she thought the story was great fun and that she wanted to buy it.

God, this business is so much about finding the right writer-story- editor match. It’s like putting the pieces of a jigsaw together or recognizing the proper sudoku pattern. I’m starting to think of it as fusion.

Anyway, thank you, Camille.

A 10/31/09 Update: I just got the word.  The Maple Leaf Maneuver will appear on November 23, 2009.  I’ll post a reminder.

The Best of Every Day Fiction 2009

Managing Editor Camille Gooderham Campbell e-mailed me yesterday to let me know four of my five flash fiction stories published at Every Day Fiction during the magazine’s second year (September 1, 2008 to August 31, 2009) will be included in The Best of Every Day Fiction 2009.

They aren’t a thing alike.

I Must to the Barber’s Chair is a gentle love story.  It appeared the first day of the publishing year — September 1.  In His Prime (October 16) is speculative fiction, a time-travel story involving one of boxing’s most famous champions. Oh, Woman of Easy Virtue (November 21) is a snarky bit of whimsical word play.  Upon the Doorsteps (January 22 — my birthday) is a somber mother-daughter encounter that just might be a ghost story.

I love each one and each for a different reason.  And I’m so pleased they appeared at Every Day Fiction.

Thank you, Camille.

At Flash Fiction Chronicles

Gay Degani is still off on retreat in Vermont; bewitching words, turning them into stories that will take your breathe away.  So, I did a guest column for Flash Fiction Chronicles today.  On Stubborn Rams and Terawatt Dams takes a look at rejection and the value of persistence.

Check it out, if you get a chance.  And peruse some of the wisdom submitted by other contributors while you’re there.

Go on; go on.  The show is over here — for the moment.

At AlienSkin magazine

My flash, We Who Are Ernest Now Salute You, is up over at AlienSkin Magazine.

It’s tongue-in-cheek silliness, a flashback, I suppose, to my years living in Key West. I must admit that I never saw an actual minion of pure evil in the Southern-Most City. At least, I don’t think so. In Key West, it’s hard to tell.

Check it out, if you have a chance. Let me know what you think. I hope you like it.

An update

I finished Alice, When She’s Ten Feet Tall this morning. It’s a cautionary tale about mucking about with the natural order of things, even when it appears that there has been crossed signals. 2,800 words. I’m pleased with it now, but I’ll let it set a few days and then go back to it. If I still feel good about it then, I’ll send it out.

I also have completed the outline for my SF novel, Power in the Blood, and have 10,000 words in the file. I’ll tell you more about it when it’s a bit further along.

UPDATING THE UPDATE (Monday, October 13, 2009): It has been a week since I finished Alice, When She’s Ten Feet Tall, so I ran it through my critters. I wound up changing the POV from first-person to third-person, doing a full rewrite and adding 300 words.

Oh, the humanity!

My work station is littered with the skeletal remains of old paragraphs and bloodied by the wholesale slaughter of words. Even so, she lives and is a better story. A writer who ignores an honest critique does so at her peril.

I’m going to comb its adjectives and brush its verbs now, so that I can send it off to Clarke’s World before the day is through.

At the movies

There’s a pop psychology theory that claims we all imagine ourselves as the hero of our very own movie.

I confess that I often see my life in that way and yesterday, settled into a theater seat with diet cola and popcorn in hand,  I decided what my movie has to be.

Zombieland.

I’ll say it again, just because I like the way it rolls off my tongue and because I believe in the double-tap rule.  Zombieland.  When did the notion of trekking across a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic America become so much fun?  Shaun of the Dead?

Hard to say for sure, but it is.  And I can’t remember laughing so hard at a movie.  Particularly during one scene set in Hollywood.  I won’t spoil it.  When you see this film, and you should, you’ll understand what I’m saying.

It will never win an Oscar and it may gross out folks without a bit of a dent in their sense of humor.  But it is spot on the mark for the type of movie it sets out to be.

Zombieland stars Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson, with Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.  Bill Murray has a sweet cameo appearance.  The film is directed by Ruben Fleischer; written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

Way to go, guys. 

At Flash Fiction Chronicles

Gay Degani is in Vermont for a month-long writer’s retreat (she’s blogging about it at Words in Place) , but before she left, we chatted about this and that for an interview at Flash Fiction Chronicles.

It’s posted today, if you would like to slip on over there and check it out.

10Flash: Issue 2

Its hopping this morning over at 10Flash, my genre flash fiction quarterly.

Just a bit past 8:00 a.m. PST now, eight hours since Issue 2 went online, and we have hit 500 readers. Issue 1 had 1,000 visitors its first twenty-four hours. We’ll see how things go today.

If you have a chance, pour yourself a cup of coffee, settle in at the computer and check out the stories by some red-hot writers.

Mmmmm … Good stories.

An update: It’s just a few minutes before 1:00 a.m. on Friday, October 2. Almost 1,200 folks dropped by 10Flash on Thursday to have a look at Issue 2 and we’ve already had 50 visits since midnight.

I want to thank all of the visitors; I hope you enjoyed the stories. I also want to say thank you to all the readers who left comments. They are appreciated.

And I want to say thank you to the eleven writers who let us peer inside their imaginations. I believe that is the underlying reason that people seek out art of all sorts. We all live inside our own heads. Experiencing art, particularly the written word, allows us to witness what someone else is thinking.

And to Laura Eno, author of Heist Outré, a special thanks for flogging the blog. Of those 1,100+ visitors yesterday, 316 dropped by to read her story. You’re an angel, Laura!

At Every Day Fiction

My flash fiction, Canticles, is the story of the day today at Every Day Fiction.

It’s crime noir, a cautionary tale about the perils of stealing from your boss — particularly when your boss is a made man.  Capiche?

Check it out if you have the chance; let me know what you think.