OUTSIDE INTERESTS

New Release (of mine, of course!)

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A very short story of mine appears in a Kindle-only edition of “Speculative Valentine Drabbles 2015“, edited by Roy C Booth and Jorge Salgado-Reyes.

I’m a short fiction writer at heart, and while I adore the short form, drabbles are probably my favorite mind exercise. Drabbles are exactly 100 words. Some editors include the title in that word count for a little extra spice, but no matter how you look at it, framing a story in exactly 100 words is an exciting challenge.

When writing one, you find you spend a lot of time questioning your thought processes, tasting shortened phrases, deleting and rearranging. It does, after all, have to be perfect. You can hide mistakes in longer stories, bury awkward phrases under hundreds of others, but in a drabble – every word is front and center. Eventually you stop obsessing and just submit.

Kidding, you never stop obsessing.

“Deluvsion” is my 4th published drabble and the second written for Roy and Jorge (“Catoptromancy” appears in Spooky Halloween Drabbles 2014). I like to tell myself I don’t write for people on demand, but I can say no to these two.

There are 67 stories  (if I’m counting correctly) by 60 authors from around the world  in genres like horror, science fiction, romance and the loveliest catch all – spec. Some are wholly contained with a solid beginning, middle, and end, and others leave you wondering desperately “what happens next?” Happy, sad, morbid, gruesome – you may be surprised how much emotion a skilled author can pack into 100 words.

Read it over lunch, and then read it after dinner. T

Then bookmark your favorite stories and memorize them so when you see the authors at a book signing or the grocery story or waiting to cross the street after leaving that bakery they visit every Friday about 5:47 pm for baklava and a cannoli, you can recite those 100 words back with all of the intensity your passion incites.

Authors love that.

So do me a favor, if you have a Kindle or even a Kindle emulator (my fancy Android phone has one), treat yourself to some quick fiction appropriately themed for the season and then please leave a review at the Evil Empire or Goodreads or Shelfari.

Or just tell me here. It’ll be our secret.

Affiliate Disclosure I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated websites.
Just this fox. I'm a writer of horror and dark fantasy. I totally don't brag about it. The latter statement is an utter lie.
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