Publication!

My story “Doofus” is out in the September issue of Flash Fiction Online. Cute story. Read. Enjoy. Leave a comment. Tell your friends. Only then will the world will return to balance, and if you don't, everyone will think you're a doofus.

Flash Fiction Online is a great magazine, offering several short, entertaining, often thoughtful stories each month. It is, in my unbiased opinion, the best flash fiction magazine out there. You can read it online, and you can subscribe for free though your RSS feed. Did I mention they pay pro rates?

In addition to my tale, there are three other wonderful stories in this issue:

• Ray Vukcevich’s story “Suddenly Speaking,” one of the most surreal stories I have read in a while, fun too.
  
• Patrick Lundrigan’s story “How High The Moon,” a logical conundrum wrapped in a robot story.
  
• Classic flash from Punch magazine’s March 1919 issue,
  
• And some interesting columns to boot.

Have a look, have a laugh, leave a comment, leave a tip (keeps the magazine going and I get a cut ;), and most important of all, tell your friends!

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PS -- For those interested in history, this story emerged from a Writer’s Bloc writing prompt. The prompt was "...the knot came undone..." and “Doofus” was the tale I finally wrote after considering stories about a climbing accident, the Tower of Babel, and an incident involving a Hamas militant.

PPS -- look for Scott Lininger’s Love Bound in the back issues. It’s a haunting and memorable ghost story that also emerged from Writer’s Bloc.

Status - -May 1, 2009

The short story “’56” came out in Fusion Fragment, that is quite exciting. Have a look.

The book is trundling along--still working edits to section 4 (The Crumble). This is the second of three areas that needed to be gutted. I had hoped to get through all of them in April, but it is slow going. This is part of the process I have trouble with--going in a new direction, yet trying to retain the good elements of what is being replaced. It’s not that hard when I sit down and do it, but I feel no drive toward it and other concerns occupy my mind and I endlessly procrastinate.

The latest “done” projection was August, but I’m now about three weeks behind that and it looks like 1-2 weeks more on this section. Frustrating.

The good news is that I’ve gone back to cleaner sections for a mental break, and have found some good writing there. These sections are fun to read and I enjoy doing little edits on them. However, such excursions are really just a form of procrastination and I am trying to focus myself on the task at hand.

Progress report April 17, 2009

Hurray, a sale. Fusion Fragment just accepted a flash fiction piece, “’56”. It should come out in May.

Getting a fair amount of revision done during the vacation. A lot of activities and family stuff, but I’ve managed to write about 3 hours per day. Just finished the first major block of re-writes, gutting a slow section and replacing 3 chapters entirely.

The section I just started is a stitch together of about 50% new material and 50% old material, but it amps up the pace of the middle of the book (which sagged a bit in the 1st draft).

I am also doing a careful, chapter-by-chapter analysis of “The Forest of Hands and Teeth” (TFHT). I chose this book because of the zombie novels on the market, this is the closet I could find to my own (though they are VERY different). This book appears to have been well publicized (implying the publisher believed in it) and it appears to be doing well. I thought I might learn a thing or two if I closely examined it, picking up some tricks and tecniques that might make my book better. Sadly, the book has been a disappointment, the most interesting parts are skipped, the whole plot driven by dues-ex-machina and the protagonist turning out to be very, very, very annoying. Still, I have noticed a few patterns I may adopt (the good parts) and noted many things that weaken the book (which I will stay away from) and overall the book is entertaining in that quick-read-by-the-pool way.