Getting any writing done this week was always going to be a challenge. I have a couple of secret prototypes underway for my day job, I’m giving a keynote presentation in a couple weeks that I need to work on and our marathon training is starting to ramp up.
To make things even tougher, at the beginning of the week I had four writing projects with looming deadlines:
- A 1,000 word flash story for the Brevity Workshop
- The Bone Boy
- In the Shadow of Memories
- An untitled monster story
Most of my labour day weekend got taken up with the prototype work so I decided to take an extra day off work and focus on writing. That strategy worked very well and on Tuesday I wrote and submitted the first draft of the flash story (working title – The Ride) and finished off In the Shadow of Memories. I also wrote a review of a password manager called DashLane that I’ll post here at some point. All that writing meant I was able to use Wednesday evening to revise The Bone Boy and get it ready to submit on Thursday morning.
As any short fiction writer will tell you, it can take a very long time to get a response back from an editor – even a form rejection can take months. Acceptances are no better, the first story I sold, Letter From a Victim was with the editor for 308 days and that’s not the slowest acceptance I’ve ever had. I’m used to sending off a story and then forgetting about it until I get a response months later. So, I was very surprised when, 2 hours and 21 minutes after I submitted The Bone Boy, I got a reply from James Ward Kirk saying he wanted to publish it in his upcoming anthology, Bones.
I really like the story so it’s fantastic that James does too and it should be a great anthology. It also marks my 20th acceptance although a couple of those are MIA so I doubt it will be the 20th publication. Still, 18th is good too.
As part of my Tuesday writing binge I ended up going to the Vancouver Public Library to work. It’s the first time I’ve done that and after some wrangling with my Chromebook it worked well. It’s a great library, lots of space and a lot cooler in the summer. It’s not far from home so I’ll probably hang out there more in future.
The last couple of days have been a lot less productive. I did manage a few hundred words on the monster story but that’s about it. Next up, I need to revise and submit In the Shadow of Memories – day job permitting I’m going to try to do that this weekend. I’ve got a prototype that needs finishing though.
[We Have a Winner – The Bone Boy by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 6th September 2013]