No Luck Yet

My first flash fiction piece got its first rejection!

That’s all right–I have another story ready to send to Daily Science Fiction, and there are lots of other places to submit short fiction.

…If I could just find the time to search them out and read over their guidelines.

My daily schedule is…non-existent. Every day I get an unpredictable amount of sleep at unpredictable times. Everything (and I mean everything) takes a back seat to baby. Those of you who have kids know how it is.

How did/do you scrunch writing in alongside 24/7 baby care?

Big Changes

You may or may not have noticed I’ve posted nothing about writing for a while. Truth be told, I allowed myself a hiatus from noveling the last several weeks. It’s been good for my stress levels.

But besides going on a crocheting and knitting binge, I wrote a few flash fiction stories and ran them by my writing groups. I have one piece awaiting review over at Daily Science Fiction. We’ll see if that ends up being its home. I’ll keep you posted on my submission journeys.

Now that I have a newborn, we’ll see how much time I can find for creative pursuits, but I expect I won’t be able to stay away from my novels too much longer.

For sure I’ll continue to update this blog Tuesdays and Fridays.

Happy Yarning!

Fun with Flash Fiction

My friend Annaliese Lemmon recently introduced me to flash fiction and this wonderful thing called Daily Science Fiction.

Flash fiction is a subset of short story with a very low word count. Depending on whose submission guidelines you check, flash fiction pieces range from no longer than 1,500 words to no longer than 300 words. In any case, they’re short.

I’ve long considered myself a novelist (and not a short story writer), because I love to read novels (and I didn’t think I liked short stories). It turns out I hadn’t been exposed to the right short stories yet.

In my time as a volunteer slush pile reader for Leading Edge Magazine, and from reading some of Annaliese’s short fiction work, I discovered that I like well-crafted sci-fi and fantasy stories–no matter the length.

I love that authors can narrate a few impactful scenes (or just one) and in doing so actually tell a vast narrative.

It’s like poetry.

Daily Science Fiction is an online magazine that publishes one sci-fi or fantasy flash fiction story 5 days a week. They also sell anthologies of the work they’ve published. Go check out their archives. Maybe you’ll love flash fiction, too.

Also, check out Annaliese’s blog! Two of her short stories are available as ebooks.

Happy Yarning!