Catch-Up in June
A post has been a long time in coming (sorry), but I have been well and truly busy. I’ve been working at setting a blog up for my pseudonym as well as prepping a couple of between blitz submissions, juggling proofing and marketing requests and participating in the voting process for one of my writer’s associations. It’s also gardening season, jugger season and I’ve been spending a lot of time with my daughter lately. So yeah – I’m busy.
That being said, the last few weeks have been pleasantly rife with story acceptances, payments, cover reveals and ToC announcements – so I have to play catch-up on those (or, at least the ones I’m allowed to talk about now.)
Compostela – Tesseracts 20 – containing my sci-fi short story “Better” is now available for pre-order here . Tesseracts is one of my “writer’s bucket list” achievements, so it’s a big deal for me. I’m sharing pages with some pretty impressive people.
Clockwork Canada, the Exile Editions steampunk anthology containing my short story “The Curlicue Seahorse” is on the ballot for the 2017 Aurora Awards, in the category of Best Related Work.
I have a new free read available too. My flash fiction, Pure Mime, has been published by Body Parts Magazine.
And you can also find me listed on two ToC announcements. The first is from Digital Fiction Publishing. My short story “Octavia” will be included in their all-female writer horror reprint anthology, “Killing It Softly 2” .
The second can be found on the blog for Mackenzie Publishing . Their “Two Eyes Open” horror anthology will include my period horror short, “Soul Cakes.” I’ve shared the lovely and intriguing cover above.
I’ll have more announcements coming soon as my last submission blitz proved to be quite successful. And I just finished a horror short for a themed anthology invite that I can’t discuss just yet. We’ll see how that goes.
I hope everybody’s year has been as exciting as mine has been so far. Now its off to work on some edits…
Spring Blitz 2017 – Catch-Up Day
Between parenting issues (which included helping my daughter with overdue homework) and other “priority items”, I missed a couple of days worth of submissions, so today I had to play catch up. I’ve now used up my reserve call for submission options so I’ll have to dig up a few more. I’m lucky enough to have multiple sources for calls that I can tap into, which makes finding ones I can match my existing stories to that much easier. I am getting closer to the bottom of my “available” list though. Unless I find more calls accepting reprints or a few more rejections come in, and/or I finish up the two shorts I’m working on. I’m going to have to start looking through older submissions that have gone a year or more without a response. Occasionally, they don’t send one and leave your story in submission limbo.
I’ll have some extra time over the long weekend. We’ll see what I manage to accomplish.
Spring Blitz 2017 – New Release
Another two submissions have gone out, one micro-fiction and one flash, and both creepy horror tales. I had another story I wanted to submit, but the venue I was considering doesn’t reopen for submissions until tomorrow, so it will have to wait. This particular story has been rejected 12 times already, but I feel it is a strong story, as it has had four “maybe”s that turned into “no”s and some decent praise from some pro-rate editors, despite no acceptance. So I’ll press on and perhaps it will find a home some day.
Another of my stories has just been released by Crimson Streets. Not only have they published “Amnesty” but they accepted a follow up story involving the same character. I have another story in mind if ever they decide they want a third.
Back to hunting out more calls for submissions – I still have three weeks of submissions ahead of me.
Spring Blitz 2017 – A Recipe for Writing
Today’s submission, to a venue I’ve had some success with before, demanded a recipe along with the submission. They were looking for old family favourites or the like – ones that could be tied to the story in some way. Not having old family favourites just hanging around my house for the sharing, I found a way to tie in one of my own creations that my family seems to enjoy. I don’t know if that particular recipe will improve or lessen my chances for an acceptance, but I figured it was worth a try.
The other submission I sent was to a venue I had tried a couple of times before with no success, but I don’t give up easily. I’ve had some stories rejected multiple times before finding a home. In some cases, it’s not a matter of “fixing” a rejected story but of seeking out a better fit.
23 more submissions still to go, but I have plenty of stories ready to go and potential calls on the radar.
Spring Blitz 2017 – Plan B
I recently came across a call for submissions I was hoping to submit to with an existing story I had that matched the theme, but it meant waiting for a rejection from a prior submission. I did get a response back, but not the rejection I had been expecting. So along with a story sale, I was left with now having to resort to Plan B … write a new story. I’m about 1,000 words in, but I have a solid story concept, so I expect I’ll finish it over the next couple of days.
I did submit a couple of reprints since my last post, to a new venue for me. I haven’t had a lot of luck with reprint submissions, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed, and my eyes open for other opportunities.
Spring Blitz 2017 – Where’s the Warm Weather?
Supposedly, April and May this year are going to be warmer than average. So far, the snow on the ground says “no.” It also says “no” to playing jugger outside and today marked our last day playing in the gym for the winter season.
So no warm weather for us just yet, although apparently my family in France are enjoying a toasty 27 degrees Celsius this week.
“Sigh”
Trying my best to ignore the snow/freezing rain, I continue with my blitz. Another story out, this time to a British call for submissions for a horror anthology.
More later…
Spring Blitz 2017 – A Storm’s a Coming
And so begins my April 2017 submission blitz.
I’m returning to my blog after a much needed hiatus. I started off this blitz with a submission of a strange story to an offbeat literary journal. I’ve had some luck with these in the past, my fiction sometimes blurring the line between “literary” and “genre”. In fact, a new publication for this month, my short story, “A Distaste for Dust” falls into this category. It’s dark and strange, but only sort of horror. It is making an appearance this April in Issue #2 of the Gathering Storm Magazine (https://www.gatheringstormmagazine.com/copy-of-volume-1-issue-1), a venue that seeks submissions based on a few inspiring themes for each issue. I’ve already written three stories as a result of these themes, and I’m happy to have the editors select one of those three for publication out of hundreds of submissions.
I have more coming out this April and I’ll advise you as it happens. There’s plenty of excitement in store for 2017 and even more, I hope, after this blitz.
December and Dark Corners
I know this has been my first blog post in some time and it’s not because I participated in Nanowrimo this year (I didn’t). Rather, real life had me busy. An issue with my well/running water that had to be resolved before the ground froze for the winter had me (and to a larger extent, my husband) occupied on the home front for over a week.
Meanwhile, having to move offices (for a third time since I started my current job) meant numerous missed breaks and lunch hours and just a general sense of feeling burnt out at the end of the work day – so any blog posts got put on hold for sometime.
December won’t be much better, time wise. Commitments for the holidays, Christmas shopping and trying to fulfill the act from my daily act of kindness advent calendar doesn’t leave much wiggle room for writing or blogging, but I’ll do my best to squeeze some in.
On a happy note, I did keep up with my short fiction writing in November. One of my blitz acceptances (from a rejection the publisher retracted the day after it was sent – a first for me) came with a request for a sequel short, so I completed that. I hope they like it. I added a bit of plot and character complexity that they might appreciate, or it may put them off. I’ll wait and see.
I also worked on a sci-fi story for a selective call for submissions (a call extension by invitation only) with an impending deadline. Writing to a requested theme can be tricky – I have a tendency to skirt the edges of the topic to avoid being boxed in, which doesn’t always work in my favour. The story ended up nice and tight though, so I’m hopeful it has a chance.
And in other news, November saw a new story release. My horror short story, “On the Tip of her Tongue” is now available in the latest Dark Corners anthology, dedicated to the original editor, who sadly passed away before the anthology saw the light. Thanks to his wife and others committed to seeing the anthology’s completion, his efforts won’t go to waste.
I’ll try to get in a few updates in December, but if blog posts are limited, I’ll make up for it in January with my first annual winter submission blitz. I’m aiming for 100 submissions next year. Let’s see if I can make it happen.
Let’s Blitz Again – It Takes All Kinds
Along with making my submissions and working on my latest short story, I’ve also had to review the galley of my first soon-to-be-published children’s story. I occasionally experiment with different genres and reader age groups, but I always tend to come back to darker adult speculative fiction. This one is for charity though, so I’m happy to contribute to the anthology.
I did get another blitz rejection back (“entertaining and well-written – but no”) so I sent it out again that same day and I sent out a multi-rejection story today. Just a few more to go now, with no new material required.
Just a quick post tonight because this is a busy week – more on Thursday 🙂
Let’s Blitz Again – #ICTTBCONTEST
Today’s submission was to Grey Matter Press’s flash fiction contest. More about that in a bit.
Yesterday brought a new rejection, but not one from the blitz. It was a story I sent out in the summer – one my sister had inspired while I was on vacation. The editors said it had piqued their interest, but in the end, they had decided it was a no. They did however say they hoped I would send in another story before the call closed. Well it just so happened the short story I had recently finished and not yet submitted anywhere matched well with their theme, so without skipping a beat, I sent that one in. I have high hopes and may end up disappointed, but it was worth a shot.
On my hunt for my next submission, I came across Grey Matter Press’s “I Can Taste the Blood” flash fiction contest and decided I’d give it a go. Today was the last day to submit, so I just managed to squeak in there. You can check out all of the flash stories submitted (including mine) at the link above and vote for your favourite. If you give it a read, I hope you find my story quite chilling.
Two-thirds of the way to blitz end. This has been a fun one.
And I’m off to hunt out my next call.
