Writingwritingwriting

Received an email from the editor of Cricket/Cicada which is a first. We’ve only corresponded before via snail mail. She requested I send her my source material for the story I submitted to Cricket on Friday. Spent an hour or so sorting my notes, citing my references in a reasonable semblance of APA/MLA style, and stuck everything in the mail.

But couple of things to make me go “woo!” from this. 1. It’s proof that she’s plucking my stories out of their slush pile. I mailed it on Friday and she’d already read it by Tuesday! 2. She’s interested enough in the story to want my references. 3. It’s an oblique indication of our maturing business relationship that she trusts me with her email address!

It’s amazing how happy a simple business email can make me.

Also devoured a jumbo-sized pixie stick after dinner which stoked my muse. I had a minor epiphany (along with a sugar rush) and realized where I was taking the SF story I started. Happily hammered out a couple hundred words, and then it was like a valve had shut off in my mind. I was cut off; no more words for me. But I figured out where the story’s going. That’s worth an unruly muse or two, isn’t it?

The story’s a new experiment in style for me. I’m writing it in first person present tense. I’m very comfortable with first person. Actually, I find it easier to write first than third. But this whole present tense thing is new. When I realized what I’d done, I tried to go back and put what I had down into past, but I couldn’t. This story has to be told in present. We’ll see what happens.

Also had a submission pass the initial round of reading at NFG. The story goes to the editorial hoard for torture and interrogation next. I usually make it past the first round, but I’ve yet to have a story survive the group grilling. Faint-hearted manuscripts. Must write them sturdier, it seems.

And finally, wrote and sent off a review for Tangent of “Elvis in the Attic” by Catherine M. Morrison in Sci-Fiction.