Into the River and Up to Your Knees

So this is my new livejournal page writing website and blog.  I just had two stories sell this week, and I told myself when I had a professional sale, I would start a livejournal writing blog.  (Ed. Note:  This blog started on Livejournal, but I have ported it over to blogger, as I like the interface better)  I was going to start the blog after the first sale, but I didn’t get around to it, and another one hit.  Perhaps I should keep putting it off, if this is the result. 

Needless to say, I’m very giddy about the sales.  I have been putting an earnest effort into writing over the past year, in which I’ve managed to crank out over 200,000 words, which include about three fourths of a novel, and around thirty short stories.  I’ve also been putting an earnest effort into submitting, which in the past had been hit or miss for me.  I’d get a few rejections and drift out of submitting for a while.  Not so this year, so far, since January first, I’ve submitted about 20 stories, and lo, garnered two sales so far.  A ten to one ratio is not bad, and several of those stories are still out there. 

A bit about the stories.  The first is a piece of flash fiction called “The Thinning,” which sold to Daily Science Fiction.  I hadn’t really written much flash fiction (which are stories under a thousand words) before, but I had discovered that there were a great deal of markets for flash, so I decided to give it a go.  I’ve really enjoyed writing this style of prose, as one has to be clever to fit a whole story into that short a format. It forces me, as the author, to write very tight prose, which is a good thing.  I’ve also been learning how a good flash story hints at much more that is not written. 

The second sale was a novella of mine called “The Miller’s Tale,” to Mystic Signals Magazine.  I was glad to have this one sell, as it is one of my favorite stories of mine.  But at over 17,000 words, there wasn’t a great deal of markets for it.  Novellas are oddball things.  Too short to be marketed as a novel, but usually to long for most short story markets.  It was written over ten years ago, so I’m glad it is finally seeing the light of day. 

Hopefully, some more will hit soon, but I won’t be daunted if it takes a while.  This is a long process, but I’m in it for the long haul. 

Chris