Monthly Archives: October 2014

A new day begins.  It’s late spring, the trees are green, there’s a light breeze out there, and the sun is at least considering shining.

It’s November the first.

Time to write me a novel.

National Novel Writing Month: this phenomenon began in the late 1990s in San Francisco with 21 participants, and fifteen years later and now boasts over 300,000.  We begin on November 1st, and by the stroke of midnight, November 30, will have written 50,000 words.  It’s that simple.  If that’s your idea of simple.  Sounds like fun?  Then check out the link below for more information:

http://nanowrimo.orgNaNoWriMo

This is my first year undertaking this project, and I’m not really sure how it’s going to go.  I have a novel in mind, it’s working title is “The Wolf in Me.”  It’s about a young man grappling with his dark side, his inner demons, his need for redemption.  It is about the child of a far distant world, stranded, cut off from all but threads of memory.  It is about those dark forces that roam at night, conjured in equal part from far away, and painfully near.  It is boy meets girl.  It’s about friendship.  Love.  Loss.  Sacrifice.

Or at least that’s the plan so far…..

I have just (okay, a couple of days ago, but I hadn’t gotten around to blogging about it) submitted a few stories to a site I’ve discovered called ‘Specklit’

Specklit is a great site, with very exacting criteria.  A Fantasy/Sci-fi flash fiction site, they have a word limit of exactly one hundred words. No more, no less.

www.specklit.com

I’ve submitted eight (very) short stories, and await the results.

Whether or not I’m successful with these ones, I have to say that I recommend the exercise: having to edit a story to exactly 100 words makes you think quite carefully about every one you use, and allows you to surprise yourself with how much you can cut out when you have to.  Which is a big thing for me, because as anyone paying attention to my stories (somebody out there, somewhere, anyone…..?) knows, one of the main challenges I have with writing is in getting to the point.

So the point: check out Specklit, this writing process can lead to some interesting results.  And watch this space (or rather that space) – because you never know, one or two of my stories may show up there someday.

Nb: after writing these “drabbles” – as the site likes to call them, I went back over one my failed submissions to another market and edited it from a bit over 2000 words to about 1300.  So maybe I’m onto something here.

Finally.  After all this time, somebody actually wants to publish my work.  On purpose.

I have just been informed that one of my stories has been accepted by 365tomorrows.com, which is a particularly awesome sci-fi flash fiction site, whose editors turn out to have impeccable taste in literature.  Needless to say I am very pleased with this development.  My story, Returns Policy, appears on the 3 October page: a futuristic piece about a woman who did not get what she paid for.

What can I say?  Yay me.  And check it out.

www.365tomorrows.com/10/3/ReturnsPolicy