Hey Writers. Yeah, YOU.

So I'm thinking about starting a publication...

I've always been a "pay it forward" guy. As a writer, where would I be without publications to which I submit my work? Where would I be without awesome editors who took the time to glance at my stuff, sometimes read it, and in some rare instances publish that work?

With all this in mind, I'm considering another publication. This is all groundwork and nothing is chiseled into a Lovecraftian stone monolith at the bottom of the ocean. If you have a few moments, please take my survey and feel free to share it with other writers. 

Publish This! (a survey for writers)

I'll collect surveys for the next month and share the results on the other side. Rumor has it flying monkeys might bring you a cookie.

The Graveyard of White Whales

Hello, my name is Aaron and I write short stories. Granted, the longest piece I've written was well over 100,000 words (my first "novel" and first piece of fiction I wrote), but after editing and trimming, it landed well within the 70K range. Yes, I cut 30,000 words.  Loathsome, Dark and Deep is only 67,000 words. Nothing else comes close.

I am a short story writer, and I'm not ashamed.

But things make me sad... like the white whale short story markets of yesteryear becoming the graveyard of today. After reinstating my account on Duotrope.com, I noted the following:

Of my reported acceptances (155 including poetry and reprints), 48 of those markets were dead (closed or defunct), including Everyday Weirdness, Necrotic Tissue, The Rose and Thorn Journal... some of my favorite stories had life there. Note those 48 markets represented more than 48 of my acceptances. Everyday Weirdness printed several stories and I was fortunate enough to place 3 with Necrotic Tissue. I loved those publications and did what I could to support them. Thanks to Nathan E. Lilly (Everyday Weirdness) and R. Scott McCoy (Necrotic Tissue) for everything they did to bring my stories and stories from other authors to readers' attention.

Short story venues die. It's the nature of the beast. My own brain child, 52 Stitches, is no more, but it had two years to run. It's time is done. But those which stick around? Wonderful. I'm proud to have a story in issue #118 of Space and Time. #118 people. The magazine has been around since before I was a zygote.

There are white whales I will chase and never capture before their deaths--this, too, is the nature of the beast. But I am a short story writer. I write short stories, and the submission/rejection process has made me a better writer. My stories are stronger because they've had to survive in a world of high casualty rates.

Here's a fear: writing is going to suffer in this do-it-yourself world. It already has. Why face rejections when I can easily publish myself via Smashwords, Kindle, Createspace and the like?* Why? Because, dear readers, without those white whales, even the dead ones, I would not have become the writer I am today. I wouldn't have sold a few stories to professional venues or found myself on any honorable mention lists. Writing short fiction is about the story, the art of words, and making life out of digital nothing. I want my stories to be like my flesh-and-bone children: resilient and beautiful.

Write on, chase those whales, and give some pause and respect when they leave us.

*Yes, I've published plenty of previously published material via these venues. But my first path--and it should always be a first path--was and remains the submissions trail and quest for those white whales.

The Sad Truth about Short Fiction Markets

I made a short story submission this morning. It's been a few weeks since doing so. While I was at Duotrope, I tinkered around a bit with my records.

Let's face it: short fiction markets, unless they are some time-honored tradition kept alive by the good will and deep pockets of a benefactor, aren't built to last. Even non-paying venues take time and effort (and often cash) to produce.

Of the recorded 153 "acceptances" (some reprints, some markets which never published), I counted 61 closed (permanently) or dead markets. Granted, some of those "closed" were anthologies, but roughly 40% of the markets to which my work has "sold" in the past four years are gone.

Gone, gone.

It saddens me a little.

What doesn't sadden me is the story I submitted. The first bit from "Jack is Almost Eight":

Night was coming, and Jack was afraid.

The shadow man only came at night, the darkest nights. Jack held his covers close to his seven-year-old chin as if the blanket could keep the monsters away. His thin, light brown hair stuck in sweaty ribbons against his forehead. A television hum rose from the stairs and trickled into Jack’s bedroom. Evan was watching wrestling. He would smell of beer and sweat and a day’s grease from the shop. Jack could keep his eyes shut for a while, but only so long before fear nibbled away at the fringes of his seven-year-old brain.

Here's a hint (if you didn't catch it from the sample): more than one monster lurks in this story.

Have a great weekend.

Attention Spans My Arse

In the U.K., they're celebrating "National Short Story Week". I wish we'd adopt the holiday across the pond.

One blogger posted: "It's a week to celebrate short attention spans!" (I've happily lost the link...sorry.)

Loving short stories has nothing to do with a short attention span. I'm sick of hearing it.

Here's what short stories can do (which you rarely find in "successful" longer fiction): they can push boundaries, take chances, and experiment. Each word becomes more important, every sentence a movement in the symphony, each paragraph a fist to the jaw. Yes, there are novels which do as much, but they seldom sell well. Novels are the commercial medium. That's their anchor, their curse.

It is my contention (based on several years of experience as a writer and reader) professional short fiction markets seek stories with grit, voice, and originality while the best selling novels are formulaic, trite, and easy on the brain.

Maybe it's the novels which cater to short attention spans...or, at least, simple minds?

Disagree? I'm glad you do. Let's hear it.

Edited to add: Read the wonderful "Principles of a Story" by Raymond Carver, one of my short story heroes.

WIP Wednesday: Oh, Revisions, Where Art Thou?

As I often do after writing a longer piece (this time, Borrowed Saints), I've attacked short story mode with a kind of rabid fervor. I now have five (well, almost five) competed first (or second) drafts in need of revisions...some major, some minor. I also need to put the finishing polish on that 15K novella.

I usually like revising, but the ideas just keep coming of late, and I don't want to slow down. I'm also trying to let my stories sit longer. I want them to be masterpieces. I want their wings to be firm and sure when I push them out of the nest.

I promise I'll revise once I finish my current story. Promise.*

From "The First Girl I Ever Loved":

The town is dying, but I’m compelled to drive every street, revisit every corner on which I shared history with Megan. Share history with Megan. The same old men sit in overstuffed chairs in the first floor reading room of the local library. The building is the same, I’m sure, but smaller. Perhaps, like the old men, the building has withered with age. They turn their bulbous, shiny eyes toward me, and their mouths open, stretching the slick, rubbery skin of their lips. Each holds up a braid of Megan’s hair as I pass through. They all have one, and use the strands as placeholders in their books. She kissed me for the first time—the only time—while we studied for a physics exam on the second floor, and I can still smell her under the spoil of old skin and moldy books. I enter through the back of the library and leave through the front, hesitating only to raise a hand in greeting to the old men.

Notice the odd tense shift in the passage? I'm playing with reality here, and this is only a tiny taste. I hope it works because I have big dreams for this one. Honesty is coming easier these days...just not revising.

*note the author crosses his fingers as he types this, which makes it damn hard to type

Why I'll Never Make a Living as a Writer

A comment made in response to Robert Swartwood's recent post about the state of short fiction has stuck with me, pestering me like a bad rash. (here's the full entry and comments)

from Jeff (commenter #3):

"I blame us – writers, but also editors and publishers of short fiction. My wife, who is not a writer but an avid reader, is rather fond of telling me (when I am down, depressed, and angry) that if I want people to read what I write, I have to write things people want to read. This advise goes against everything your [sic] taught as a writer, but it is also profoundly true."

Why has the comment held on? Because it is true. Too true.

I've bristled against popular "art" in the past. If art (be it writing, visual arts, music, performing arts...) is boiled down to "paste-pudding" (to steal a term from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451), it loses something. Make art accessible to everyone, and it is bland. Simple. Easy to ingest. Not art anymore.

Case in point:

Isn't this the kind of joke we used to make in college (while we were drunk)? How did it become an industry?

So call me a snob. I want my art, and my writing, to challenge me. I've felt the short story was the pinnacle of the "art" of writing for some time. Yes, there are wonderful, challenging novels out there, but most of what we're fed is paste-pudding. Short fiction in the highest paid magazines (and most well-read, even though they sport meager numbers) is more original, better written, more "artful" than popular novels--thus making itself (and the magazines which publish it) less accessible...less popular.

Alack.

I want to hear a little perspective in the comments...give me a piece of your mind, and I will cherish it well (in a jar of on my bookshelf).

WIP Wednesday: Oscillation Edition

Over the weekend, I received a rejection for Rock Gods & Scary Monsters that kind of inspired me. I've been kicking around a new YA idea (well, vamping some of my old ideas into something new, anyway), and said rejecting agent suggested he/she might be interested in seeing my next "thing".

But my problem: plot development...namely development of subplots.

This, I believe, is where short story writing hurts. My longer work is too focused (at least too focused to be commercial, I guess). My WIP is character development for the new novel. I've written a few thousand words, too.

And then I had another "must write" short story idea.

Ack!

(but...it's a winner...really)

So, from the as yet unnamed YA novel (in which there are ghosts, sort of):

After he describes the other "weirdos" in his senior seminar...

And who was left? The lone ranger in the circle of the damned? The only sane member of LeClaire’s inner cabal?

“Andy?”

Me. Six feet nothing, piggy-tail corkscrew hair in brown, like some uber-happy six-year-old found the acrylic and went Van Gogh on my head. If you straightened my hair, it might have been half a foot long. Curled up, it poked out about three-quarters of an inch. I wore a pair of fat-rimmed glasses with lenses wide enough to ignite an ant hill on a cloudy day, a baggy, black t-shirt, and jeans. The hole-free variety.

And then "Shovel Man" (the dastardly short story):

“The others are coming, and I want to be ready. I’ll need your help.”

The word others stoked the sliver of fear lodged in the boy’s chest, but he moved to the ladder, dropped his pail and started to climb. He climbed because the stranger’s voice, like the exotic smell, carried a sweetness to it, benevolent and intoxicating. The wood rungs groaned as the boy’s weight shifted and fell on one after the other, step by step.

I'm playing around with not naming the characters in this one, giving them a "fairy tale" quality. Rest assured, it's a Grimm's fairy tale. The truth is...I think I'm more of a short story writer.

Whew. I said it.

Have a lovely Wednesday.

WIP Wednesday: What I Read

I have a "you are what you eat" philosophy about reading. Aside from work written by authors I know personally (including those of you I only know in the digital sense), I tend toward highly recommended material written by acknowledged pros. I'm sure I'm missing some diamonds in the "rough", but reading time is limited (like too much of my life these days).

This is the third year I've picked up Ellen Datlow's Best of the Year--the first year in which the book is solely dedicated to dark fiction (and soley edited by Datlow). While I'm not through with Best Horror of the Year Volume 1 (it's my current "read in progress"), I want to highlight a few high points.

"Beach Head" by Daniel LeMoal is the first piece since god-knows-when that inspired a physical fear response from page one. The set up: three drug smugglers with hands tied are buried to their neck on a sandy beach. It only goes creepier from there. While the prose isn't always razor sharp, the effect is. I felt like I was suffocating while I read.

"The Hodag" by Trent Hergenrader affected me in a different, more nostalgic way. It is a tale that spans decades, and the narrator's chilling realization in the final paragraphs is more frightening than the Hodag itself. What is a Hodag? Glad you asked. "The Hodag" is the kind of story I would write if I could write better. It's a goal.

Some pieces, meh. I didn't finish "If Angels Fight" by Richard Bowes. Not my style, a little slow. But there is variety in this collection. Even if you disagree with Datlow, there isn't a true clunker in the anthology. Not that I've found, yet. It's nice to see what she picks for the best. It's nice to have a sampling of pieces from a number of high quality venues, too.

Yeah, I'm still writing short stories. I've chopped an old piece in half and am reworking it into something completely different, a tale of two friends separated by circumstances (supernatural and otherwise). From "Come Out and Play":

I tried to run; I turned and tried to run down the rough path, but my foot hooked a protruding tree root, and I toppled to the ground, skinning my left palm and striking my elbow on a rock. My inhaler toppled from my outstretched hand and tumbled into a pile of damp leaves. No, no, no, no. The sound of snapping twigs came closer; Gage came closer, but there was another sound—a scratching sound.

The sound of sharpened nails against tree bark. My lungs burned.

So there we are. October almost over (yay! Halloween), but no complete edits to Loathsome. Maybe in November.

Chilling Short Fiction: Five of My Favorites

I've never been much a fan of "best" or "top five/ten/twenty-five" lists (even though I've thrown together a few myself). Call this a list of some of my favorite works of short fiction fitting the Halloween spirit. I'm sure I'll add more in time.

1. "The Lonesome Place" by August Derleth. No other single story has influenced my own writing more than this short story by Lovecraft's biggest fan. You can find snippets on the 'net (like at Google Reader), but the real value is in finding a dusty old book with the whole text.

2. "The Assembly of the Dead" by Chet Williamson. I've read this piece more than any other I've not taught. (as a teacher, I have too many touches with some stories to count) The end still baffles me, but in a good way: just enough mystery, just enough darkness.

3. "The Caterpillars" by E.F. Benson. You can read this one yourself.

"Occasionally one fell off on to the floor, with a soft fleshy thud, and though the floor was of hard concrete, it yielded to the pincerfeet as if it had been putty, and, crawling back, the caterpillar would mount on to the bed again, to rejoin its fearful companions."

4. "The Rats in the Walls" by H.P. Lovecraft. Only recently has this piece unseated "In the Vault" as my favorite by Mr. Lovecraft. Gawd...the ending. Just read it.

5. "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" by Joe R. Lansdale. Say what you will about Mr. Lansdale, he spins one helluva entertaining story. "Incident..." kept me going right up to the end, then blam!--punch to the gut (in the best way possible).

I'll add more before Halloween. Promise. I haven't even touched King or Poe, so you know it's going to get messy.

What else should I consider? What are some of your favorites?

WIP Wednesday: Scraps

I was trying to sew together some stray bits and pieces, hopefully rendering something worthwhile from the fragments of my flash drive. So then, I take a walk, and WHAM!

...new ideas start smacking me around like a stubborn mackerel. (die fish, die)

Other than furiously scribbling notes and typing bulleted points, I rewrote a thrice rejected piece this week, finished a longer tale about Gary Sump, "The Great God Gary Sump", and flirted with revisions to Loathsome, Dark, and Deep. I've also made a decision regarding NaNo.

Not this year.

I know I'm going to feel "left out", but I have to do what is right for me and my writing. Peer pressure is a bitch. I don't want to be the kid on the outside looking in, steaming the window with my breath. NaNo is a great motivator. Right now, my most important WIP is trying to shake a lingering cough and land a decent night's sleep.

So I'll spend the rest of October cobbling scraps together, editing Loathsome, and plotting a novel that I won't try to finish in one month. (But I do plan on starting in November.)

I have nothing else in progress, but here's the title to my notes from last night's walk:

"The Unfortunate Persistence of Harold Francis Bechard"

(cough, cough)

WIP Wednesday: Shaving Cream

Yes, Owen (left) and Max (right) playing with shaving cream on our dining room table. These two munchkins are my real "works in progress". Notice how studious they are, investigating the properties of Barbasol.

As for writing, yes, I've been working on a few things. I finished "Climb" (3,400 words) and another short-short, "Guided by Wire" (1,700 words), and both are out in submission land. The real joy of shorts: they leave the nest so soon.

I've started another piece called "Tap, Tap" (shooting for 2,500-3,000 words). The idea for "Tap, Tap" came to me while I swam laps at the aquatic center. The deep end is soooo deep and it has this creepy little grate at the bottom...

The first paragraph (subject to change):

Dillon paced the floor of the deep end, mop in hand, waiting for his shift to end. The Olympic-sized pool had been drained as it was every year for cleaning and maintenance, and Dillon found himself, along with the other lifeguards, doing a very un-lifeguard like task.

He's going to be doing a number of un-lifeguard like behaviors before it's all over.

Also, "The Surgeon of An Khe" is up at The Absent Willow Review. The story was originally slated for release in Our Shadows Speak vol. 2, a project that editor Lincoln Crisler recently scuttled. Oh well...now you can read it for free (I wrote the darn thing almost two years ago).

Enjoy the ride.

WIP Wednesday: Huzzah for the Short Form!

Okay, I ended my first draft of Loathsome on Monday with a sub-stellar word count of 62K. With 10-15K of needed additions, I can sit with that.

Now (rubs hands together), I can write some short stories. First up to bat: "Climb". I'm about 1,000 words in, and like what's shaping up thus far. The finished product should land around 2500-3000 words.

The elder god, M’bori Sangu, sleeps in his shrine at the center of the plateau. Before each rainy season, the five villages bring their best dishes: spiced yams, ground nut stew, tender mutton. Only two ropes lead to the plateau, and the top climbers—always boys under seventeen years—make the ascent, each carrying a basket of human skulls filled with the delicacies.

Have I mentioned I'm reading a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's short fiction? Man, "The Rats in the Walls" chilled my marrow. I know prevailing wisdom says to write with specific markets (especially anthologies) in mind, but I've never worked that way.

This is the End?

I "finished" my first draft of Loathsome yesterday. Finished is such a funny word, isn't it? That...thing is far from "finished". I hate the book right now. I'm sure it's total crap.

*sigh*

We'll see how I feel in a month. For now, I'm thrilled to be back in the realm of short stories. My "catalog" is thin, and a few tales have languished on my flash drive, waiting for revisions. Short stories won't make me rich or famous, but I never claimed those goals, anyway.

Short Stories Anonymous

Hello, my name is Aaron and I'm addicted to short stories.


I finished writing my last short story on Saturday, but I've worked on two more since then. I need help.

Seriously...if I want to do this writing thing, I should invest some time writing longer work, novels. I started writing with a novel, a 80K word dark urban fantasy (The Last Days of the Springdale Saints), currently out there in submission land. But there are a lot of rejections in submission land, especially for an unpublished novelist. Agents click 'delete' faster than you can say "Jack Sprat".

So, I tried my first few short stories. Type type type, send send send. I woke up one Saturday to an acceptance email. And they even paid me (only twenty bucks, but hey, thats enough to write more short stories, right?). I've been hooked since. Short stories are like those little mini candy bars. One more won't hurt, right?

The danger of this addiction: I'm afraid to dive back into novel land. I've been kicking around some ideas, letting them age a bit, adding to them here or there. But I don't feel ready for the time/emotional commitment that writing a novel takes.

There's always November.