The Story Behind the Story: A Seat at the Bar

God bless NYC Midnight. This story, too, is a product of their Flash Fiction Challenge. It was the second round of their 2013 FFC, and I was assigned a ghost story in a hotel bar with sunglasses.

I'd written most of a story set in the early 1900s when it occurred to me to check the year sunglasses were invented. Turns out, they're a product of the 1920s--1929, to be exact. Oops. Draft 1 scrapped.

On to Draft 2.

I tried using third person narration. I tried a more traditional structure. But this story insisted on being something different. The story didn't flow until I transcribed the bartender's monologue word for word.

The nontraditional format had mixed results. The feedback from the NYC Midnight judges was largely negative, but they award the story more points than my other flash fiction entries. Go figure.

After the competition, I workshopped the story in my writer's group and tweaked it here and there to fix some inconsistencies. The result is the story you see now, over on Fiction First.

Happy Halloween!

To read "A Seat at the Bar" click here.

It's All Coming Back to Me Now

At the end of August, I was Burned Out. My energy, creative and otherwise, was depleted. I needed a break and so I decided to take a sabbatical from writing for a month. That month is approaching an end. I know this not just because the calendar tells me so, but also because the creative centers of my brain tell me so.

After weeks of nothing, my characters are once again making cameo appearances in my daily life. A hello wave from characters in The New Novel when I was swimming. A wink and a nod from the main character in my last piece of flash fiction as I was falling asleep. A postcard from a short story that I'd set aside to work on later.

It's not enough yet for me to resume my regular writing schedule, but it's a sign--a comforting one--that my creative batteries are, in fact, recharging and that my fictional friends will be ready and waiting whenever I get back to them.

The Story Behind the Story: Potions 101

It's Back-to-School season, so I chose this month to post a school story.

I wrote this story for the NYC Midnight 2013 Flash Fiction Challenge . It's actually the story that knocked me out of the competition. (Well, the original version did. What's posted here is a revised version.)

My prompt for this particular challenge was to write a 1,000-word fantasy that included a classroom and a cigarette. As with every other NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge, I had one weekend to complete the story.

The idea of a young witch in a potions class came to me very quickly, as did her lack of talent in the kitchen. To be honest, I'm not sure where the idea came from. It's entirely possible I was mainlining Harry Potter movies that weekend. But Belva Emerson is no Hermione Granger. If anything, she's got more in common with Ron Weasley.

The story came quickly. It's not ground-breaking or particularly deep, but it's cute and it's fun. That wasn't enough for the NYC Midnight judges, but it was enough for me.

Enjoy the read!

To read "Potions 101," click here.

Low Battery

Low battery symbol courtesy of GNOME icon artists via Wikimedia Commons under GNU General Public License.

If my creative energy had an indicator light, it would be flashing Low Battery. The events of the summer have drained me, and my writing has suffered as a result. It's amazing how the stresses of my non-writing life affect my ability to write. My writing has gotten flatter, simplistic, shallow. Even the act of writing--the basic stringing of words together--has gotten more difficult.

The external stresses are starting to let up, but my energy remains depleted. What I really need is a true getaway vacation. Unfortunately, for a wide variety of reasons, that is not an option. So, I've decided to take a vacation from writing instead.

I write for a living and that writing will need to continue. My fiction writing, though, is being set aside for a while. I know there are writers who would consider that blasphemy--a writer writes! every day! for hours! producing thousands of words! This writer, though, subscribes to a different school of thought. One that says that fallow times are necessary. One that says plants need the dormancy of winter in order to bloom in the spring. (I borrowed that from someone, but I don't remember who. Whoever you are, thank you! Please let me know who you are so I can give you credit.)

It's time for my fiction writing to go dormant. I need to read and sleep and swim and quilt. I need to exercise my creative impulses in other ways. I need to recharge my creative battery, let new ideas germinate, give myself a break, before I burn out completely. So begins my writing sabbatical, so that new stories may blossom later.

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

What a month it's been. Some random samplings of what's being happening:

Deadbeat Client

This past spring, I finished a large project for a new client. Payment for that work was due at the beginning of June. As of this writing, I have yet to receive a penny. I spent a great deal of time and energy in June and July nagging the client for information and payment, networking with other freelancers in the same situation, and even consulting a lawyer about my legal options. It's been an emotionally draining experience and financially stressful. The client insists we will all get paid in full eventually, but I'm not planning on it. They haven't kept their word so far. Why would I believe them now? (And no, I will not be working for this client ever again.)

UPDATE (8/18): Miracle of miracles! I actually received a partial payment today from the Deadbeat Client. I've never rushed a check to the bank so fast in my life. Any bets on whether it bounces?

The Novel

In addition to participating in Authoress' July Secret Agent Contest, I took a query-writing class and wrote the query for my novel. I admit I did a little dance when the agent teaching the class commented that my query was "very strong." Thank you, LitReactor and Sarah LaPolla!

Then I tweaked the query based on Sarah's feedback, proofread and fixed up The Novel, and submitted it for this year's Pitch Wars competition. In this first round, entrants compete for a mentor--a published or about-to-be-published author who will guide them through revisions and polishing in preparation for Round 2 of the contest, in which entrants compete for the attention of literary agents.

Mentors will announce their selections on September 3rd. In the meantime, I am a bundle of nerves. Every time a mentor I submitted to posts a comment in Twitter, I wonder, "Is that my entry she's talking about?" And of course I answer yes every time, even though I have absolutely no idea. If this is what querying literary agents directly is going to be like, I'm going to need lots of chocolate to get through it.

The Dog

I also discovered that I may have been inadvertently poisoning my dog. I discovered that the treats I've been feeding Benji for the last year have an ingredient called propylene glycol, which is related to antifreeze and has been connected to health problems, including kidney failure. (Benji was diagnosed with kidney failure last September.) I have no proof that Benji's kidney failure is connected to the treats I gave him, but I'm sure giving him the treats haven't helped his condition. (I'm also a bit miffed that when the vet was asking me about possible causes, she never mentioned propylene glycol as a possibility, but that's just one of many reasons my next dog will be seeing a different vet.) So, poor Benji had to go treatless for one night after I threw out the treats I had in the pantry. I have since been on a quest to find treats that don't have propylene glycol. Sad to say, they are few and far between.

Benji's also declined a bit in the last couple of weeks. He's eating markedly less (about half of what he had been eating previously) and his activity interest has decreased as well. I'm not sure which is cause and which is effect, but either way, they are signs of declining health.

A Heartbreaking Goodbye

A few weeks ago, the shelter where I volunteer took in a yellow lab named Buddy. This is Buddy:

He's a lovable lug who came in with a host of medical problems. At 8 years old, he'd never seen a vet in his life. He had an ear infection, a urinary tract infection, and a back leg that could not support his weight. Despite the pain and discomfort that he had be in, his tail always wagged and he was always up for a cuddle. He won the hearts of everyone who met him. We treated his ear infection and UTI. We had him neutered. But his back leg never seemed to get better. Last week, the vet confirmed the worst possible diagnosis: cancer. It had spread too far to be treatable, so on Friday, Buddy was put to sleep.

I was in the grocery store when I got the news that Buddy had passed. I stood in the salsa aisle and cried. Buddy had wagged his tail until the end.