Thursday, February 23, 2006
A Short Story Acceptance!
Woke up feeling pretty good about things today. I checked my email, as I always do before work, and there was one from the fiction editor at Wildchild Publishing. They have accepted my short story, Under the Skin, for their March 2006 issue.
What a great start to the day! I was delighted. After hundreds of rejections since my last published short story back in May 2004, it feels brilliant to have written something that is suitable for acceptance again. I've been rejected many times by Wildchild (once accepted and then pulled) so it feels good as far as that specific publication is concerned.
But from a wider view, it has been 21 months since my last short story publication. That's a long time. I knew I had to change that terrible statistic this year and built it into my GDR.
I have also made a concerted effort to alter how I write my stories. My method may seem to be working, but it may also be a coincidence. I've started concentrating on:
Mood - does the mood accurately reflect what I want to move the reader to feel?
Structure - is there a good opening hook, strong prose (descriptive and dialogue that constantly moves the story along), a clear goal, aim or desire and is there a suitable ending (with or without a twist)?
Characters - is it clear what the characters want and feel and are they "human"?
We could be heading for a winter-weekend, with snow forecast for the latter parts of the week and into next Monday. Hopefully Saturday will be a fine day for sport as Scotland face England at Murrayfield in Round 3 of the Six Nations Championship. This fixture also has a parallel competition running, as the two historically competitive nations battle it out for the Calcutta Cup. Scotland have only won it three times in the last twenty-two years; 1984, 1990 and 1999, so it's about time a revolution came.
I wrote 2500 words on Stella, but I achieved much more. I read over the story again before I began writing, and each time I do I always pick up something new about the characters. They always seem so distant when I am not involved in the actual writing of the story, but then when I sit down to write they come back to life - larger than life.
When I was writing Hunting Jack, Jackie McCann was always with me. I practically lived with him, waking up every day to have him in my head and always having something about the story on my mind. It's not been like that with Stella, it's been more - relaxed.
ORDER a copy of my latest book, FRINGE FANTASTIC!Click here to order securely using your credit/debit card.
For more information about Fringe Fantastic, please go to the website: http://fringefantastic.colingalbraith.co.uk
What a great start to the day! I was delighted. After hundreds of rejections since my last published short story back in May 2004, it feels brilliant to have written something that is suitable for acceptance again. I've been rejected many times by Wildchild (once accepted and then pulled) so it feels good as far as that specific publication is concerned.
But from a wider view, it has been 21 months since my last short story publication. That's a long time. I knew I had to change that terrible statistic this year and built it into my GDR.
I have also made a concerted effort to alter how I write my stories. My method may seem to be working, but it may also be a coincidence. I've started concentrating on:
Mood - does the mood accurately reflect what I want to move the reader to feel?
Structure - is there a good opening hook, strong prose (descriptive and dialogue that constantly moves the story along), a clear goal, aim or desire and is there a suitable ending (with or without a twist)?
Characters - is it clear what the characters want and feel and are they "human"?
We could be heading for a winter-weekend, with snow forecast for the latter parts of the week and into next Monday. Hopefully Saturday will be a fine day for sport as Scotland face England at Murrayfield in Round 3 of the Six Nations Championship. This fixture also has a parallel competition running, as the two historically competitive nations battle it out for the Calcutta Cup. Scotland have only won it three times in the last twenty-two years; 1984, 1990 and 1999, so it's about time a revolution came.
I wrote 2500 words on Stella, but I achieved much more. I read over the story again before I began writing, and each time I do I always pick up something new about the characters. They always seem so distant when I am not involved in the actual writing of the story, but then when I sit down to write they come back to life - larger than life.
When I was writing Hunting Jack, Jackie McCann was always with me. I practically lived with him, waking up every day to have him in my head and always having something about the story on my mind. It's not been like that with Stella, it's been more - relaxed.
ORDER a copy of my latest book, FRINGE FANTASTIC!
For more information about Fringe Fantastic, please go to the website: http://fringefantastic.colingalbraith.co.uk
Colin 11:23 am
5 Comments:
Good on you, Col!!
:-)
:-)
That's wonderful! I hope there's more to come, Colin! D:)
Congrats Col! There's no better feeling than that of being newly published again! Can't wait to check it out!
:)
Leigh
www.thespinningpen.blogspot.com
:)
Leigh
www.thespinningpen.blogspot.com
Leigh Clements, The Mystery Maiden, Shot In The Dark Mysteries.com, at Saturday, February 25, 2006 10:45:00 am
WOOHOO! Congrats on the acceptance, Colin! Well deserved. :)
Way to go, Colin! Congrats!