Short stories: exit, pursued by a bear

I’m done.

While the “read a story a day” experiment was interesting, I’m ready to draw it to a close. I think I’ve read more stories in the past three weeks than I’d read in the past year — and while I’m pleased with that accomplishment, I have to be honest: a lot of these stories are pretty depressing, and that’s not a quality I want in my reading right now.

Here’s the list of what I read for week three before calling things to a halt on Saturday:

  1. I Want to Be a Lioness, by Chuck Wendig; Liberty: Seeking Support for a Writ of Habeas Corpus for a Non-human Being, by Samuel Peralta; and Help Summon the Most Holy Folded One!, by Harry Connolly (all from Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, edited by John Joseph Adams)
  2. Fulfill My Destiny–and Save the World!, by Matt Forbeck; and LARPing the Apocalypse 2: The Nano-Plague, by Tim Pratt (from Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, edited by John Joseph Adams).
  3. Phoenix Rising, by Malia Robin Kawaguchi; and Items Found in the Pocket of a God Who Abandoned His People, by Andrew Kaye (online at Daily Science Fiction)
  4. Another Will Open, by Jamie Lackey (What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  5. Off The Map, by Liz A. Vogel; and The Alien Tithe, by Eric Brown (online at Daily Science Fiction)
  6. Dipping into the Pocket of Destiny, by David Boop (What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)

My favorite this week was Help Summon the Most Holy Folded One!, by Harry Connolly, both for the humor and the surprising subject. Runner-up was Items Found in the Pocket of a God Who Abandoned His People, by Andrew Kaye, for its brevity and the unique structure.

I do think this experiment was worthwhile and I would like to repeat it… just not during the gloomy winter-y months.

In other news, I’m seriously thinking about tackling the novel again. Given that it’s NaNoWriMo, it’s certainly an appropriate time to do it. Wish me luck!

New submissions record!

I sent out another flash fiction story this morning (fingers crossed!) and I realized I have quite a few stories out at different markets. I was logging my latest submission into the Grinder (it’s vital to have a tool for keeping track of these things) and saw that I currently have six flash fiction pieces out for consideration. Plus I sent out one October 1 that was rejected, so that means I’ve sent out seven submissions this month. That’s a total record for me — I’ve never had so many pieces out at once before. Admittedly, they aren’t new stories; all of them are pieces I wrote years ago and either never submitted or sent out once and gave up. Still, it’s exciting to have so many stories under consideration — in many ways, getting published is totally a numbers game, so the more you send out, the better your odds are of selling one (or more). And you can’t get published if you never send anything out.

Here’s to trying, again and again.

Stories galore (a story a day, week two)

BooksAnother week, another batch of short stories and flash fiction! I read more than one story several days, since they were either flash pieces or simply shorter than average.

I know I should probably comment on the stories or review them in some fashion, but, well, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We’ll just say that not all of the stories were to my taste and leave it at that. But I am going to single out the stories that I thoroughly enjoyed, so at least you’ll know the ones that really hit the mark.

Here are the stories from this week:

  1. Salvage, by Margaret Ronald (from the anthology Ceaseless Steam, edited by Scott H. Andrews)
  2. Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, by Keffy R.M. Kehrli; and For Entertainment Purposes Only, by Jeremiah Tolbert (both from the anthology Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, edited by John Joseph Adams)
  3. Zero G R&J, by Mary Robinette Kowal; and A Memorial to the Patriots, by Jake Kerr (both from Help Fund My Robot Army!!!)
  4. Practical College Majors in a Robot-Dominated Society, by Nicky Drayden; Kitty Is Alive, Kitty Is Dead,
    by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks; and Investment Strategies in a Post-Apocalyptic World, by Nicky Drayden (all online at Daily Science Fiction)
  5. When the Lady Speaks, by Damien Angelica Walters (from the anthology What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  6. Power Steering, by Wendy N. Wagner (from the anthology What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  7. Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind), by Holly Black (online at Lightspeed Magazine)

My clear favorite this week is Zero G R&J, by Mary Robinette Kowal — and not just because it includes mentions of David Tennant, Nathan Fillion, Tom Hiddleston, and Benedict Cumberbatch. This story was laugh-out-loud funny on a day when I really needed it. (Thank you, Ms. Kowal.) I also thoroughly enjoyed Keffy R.M. Kehrli’s Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, which inspired the anthology of the same name, and I highly recommend Holly Black’s Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind), which reminded me a bit of Firefly.

Will there be more stories next week? Of course there will! I still have some anthologies to finish…

(Missed week one’s list, which includes the origins of this experiment? Here you go.)

A story a day, week one

Stacks of paperback booksFor the past week, I’ve read one story every day. (I’ve always favored novels over short stories, so this trend is kind of a Big Deal for me.)

I didn’t plan to do it, at least not at first; I’d just finished reading a novel and wasn’t sure what I wanted to read next. I was looking through my Kindle for ideas and spotted a couple of books I’d started reading last year but hadn’t finished: a short story collection by Cat Rambo and an anthology edited by my friend Nayad Monroe. So I decided it was high time I picked them up again. I also read a couple of stories online, just for variety — and I read two flash fiction pieces today. (I figured I needed at least two for it to count, since they were so short.)

Here’s the full list of my reading for the past week:

  1. Events at Fort Plentitude (Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight, by Cat Rambo)
  2. Dew Drop Coffee Lounge (Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight)
  3. A Crash Course in Fate, by Eric James Stone (What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  4. Read Me Up, by Maurice Broaddus (What Fates Impose)
  5. Body of Truth, by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (What Fates Impose)
  6. Still Life, With Oranges, by John P. Murphy (published by Lakeside Circus)
  7. Earth’s Destruction: A Crowdfunding Campaign, by Nicky Drayden and Notes on the Game in Progress, Played Almost to a Draw, by Alex Shvartsman (published by Daily Science Fiction)

Will I keep at it? Probably, at least for now. I’ve got a few other anthologies and story collections that I haven’t even touched yet, including Ceaseless Steam, a steampunk anthology that I’d been eager to read and then forgot I had. (It’s easy to misplace things on a Kindle — no physical book lying around to remind you to read it!) How long will I keep at it? Hard to say… as long as I’m enjoying, most likely. Check in next week and see…