Saturday, October 5, 2013

Flash Fiction: Peaches in the Breeze

Only found out the other day that my flash piece--and first ever acceptance!--was published over at Abyss & Apex. I was told it was going to be published in January 2014, but better early than later, right?

This piece was accepted back in December 2011, and A&A wasn't kidding when they said they were backlogged. Then I naively waited a year for a contract, as that was before I realized you need to get after editors, because they will let things slide. I can't emphasize that last part enough.

As for the story itself, it was inspired by a shirt--no joke. Threadless has lots of neat, artsy shirts; and when looking at this shirt, because I was looking for an idea for a flash story for the Earthbound flash contest, and thought a Japanese Medusa-esque woman would be pretty cool.

A big thanks to Rez for smoothing out the tense in this story. Present-tense is inherently choppy--and you can disagree, but that might speak of your tin-ears--so I don't recommend it, especially with 3rd-person narrative. With 1st-person, it can sound pretty natural, so that works; but I have rarely encountered present-tense sounding natural in 3rd-person. That's not saying you can't do it, it's just a lot more work if you do.   

And why yes, I did draw that picture (click on it for full size), with some crappy Crayola colored-pencils. Did you know that they got rid of red-violet? Haven't drawn in ages, but feels nice, if not obsessive (I was up till 3am erasing smudges in mspaint).

2 comments:

  1. I'm liking the Crayola art -- and WOW, what a story. Seriously, it might be my favorite of yours so far. Anything with a katana, and I'm a fan. You're right about editors; what, do they all have day jobs or something? =]

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    1. Heh, then you might like my rogue samurai stories...if I can ever get them published.

      I understand editors have lives outside of editing, but at the same time, it is their responsibility to care for the magazine, which entails being timely with responses. I now know that if I don't receive a contract within 3 months of acceptance, then I have every right pester the editor. Waiting too long may actually risk getting your story dropped, as was the case for one unfortunate writer.

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