Publication!

Awhile back Laurel Garver at Laurel's Leaves posted this piece on boosting writing credits by publishing in literary magazines. Specifically, she suggested using scenes or chapters which you have cut from an MS but which can stand alone as stories or flash fiction.

After I read this, I turned over, mentally, what I had that might fit her suggestion...fragments from an abandoned project that are still rather fragment-y...two short stories I wasn't sure what to do with. Then I remembered a prologue I had written for my current WIP. It takes place about 20 years before the main action and I wrote it out partly to give one of my characters a backstory. I liked it, but I wasn't sure how it fit in with the main narrative and finally one day I took a Joan Crawford-style vow of "No more prologues, ever!" and cut it entirely. It worked as a stand-alone story, however, and thanks to Laurel's piece I polished it, sent it out and and this week, as short story now called "The Feeb," I got an acceptance for it from The Waterhouse Review, an online literary magazine in Scotland.

(And they pay! OK - a token payment of 2 pounds -- but still!)

I'm really excited. It's kind of a smashing little story and I was always very proud of it but it's nice to know that other people see the same thing in it. And not for nothing is The Waterhouse Review known as a "personable" market. They've been great to deal with, honest and cheerful and so quick to respond!

I think I'm still a little in the is-it-all-a-dream phase...

I'll post a link when the story comes out in January. Big thanks again to Laurel for the idea. I had dipped my toe in the magazine market years ago when everything was print and response times were looooong and I never would have been motivated to do it again were it not for her post.