CrimeFictionWriter

I completed and submitted my 66th short story of the year this morning. It's a 1,100-word bit of erotica, but with a twist ending. I don't know if I had the idea before I saw the call for submissions or not, but I wrote a one-line description of this story on October 30, wrote a full draft of the story yesterday, and put the story through several drafts this morning.

I completed and submitted my 65th short story of the year a few minutes ago. This time it's a 3,100-word story about two skateboarders and a purse-snatcher. I started writing this October 22, after seeing a call for submissions and spending several weeks trying to come up with an appropriate idea.

I had a story rejected today. Not my story. Somebody else's. It arrived in one of my SASEs.

This rarely happens. After more than 30 years and several thousand rejections, this may be the third time I've received someone else's rejection.

It's an odd feeling of dismay to open the envelope and see the enclosed rejection, followed by a sense of relief that the rejection wasn't meant for me, following by another round of dismay as I wonder where MY manuscript went.

And there's also a feeling of Peeping Tomism because I read the rejected manuscript and study the editor's note (when there is one). What did this writer do or not do? How does my work compare? Do I agree or disagree with the editor's decision to reject? If it were my manuscript, how would I revise it?

In this case, the writer's eddress was on the manuscript. I've emailed her to let her know of her rejection, and tomorrow I'll mail the manuscript back to her so she can read the editor's note.

And I'll continue wondering where my manuscript went...

I just finished and submitted my 64th short story of the year, a 3,800-word St. Patrick's Day love story.

I started dictating this story on November 11, 2008, using the dictation software I purchased for my laptop when I was recovering from quadruple bypass,* and had completed the first four pages or so. A couple of weeks ago, Plot Monkey and I looked at what I had written and plotted out the rest of the story. This week I finished writing the story the conventional way (fingers on keyboard).

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*I know I mention this too often, but the four months I spent recovering had an impact on my writing that I'm still dealing with more than a year later.

I received my 27th acceptance today.

I woke up this morning to find a response to last evening's query, submitted the full ms., and received an acceptance within hours.

I finished writing my 63rd short story of the year earlier this evening. It's a 2,300-word story intended for an anthology of stories about athletes. Rather than going for the obvious--wrestlers or football players, for example--I opted to write about a caber tosser.

I had a rough idea for this story on May 3, but had only written a few sentences prior to seeing the call for submissions. I did a little research about caber tossing and then wrote the story yesterday and today.

The editor of the anthology requires queries prior to submission, so a query left here a few minutes ago.

I received my 26th acceptance earlier this evening, a bit of crime fiction to appear in an anthology of biker fiction. I knew this acceptance was coming--had even mentioned it in an earlier blog post--but didn't count it as an official sale because the editor was awaiting approval of the publisher before issuing contracts. The contract arrived today.

I finished my 62nd short story of the year a few minutes ago, a 4,000-word St. Patrick's Day confession I started writing on October 25. Rebecca--aka Plot Monkey--provided me with the idea and helped me rough out the plot before I started writing. I'm printing the final draft now and will put the ms. in the mail tomorrow.