For years I was sure I couldn’t write flashfic. In fact, if a story clocks in at less than 5000 words I usually feel it might be too short. But recently something snapped and I’ve not only been writing flashfic but selling it. Today my first effort along these lines, “The Gordian Stone”, went live at Every Day Fiction. (Morlock is a major character in it, but given the POV of the story I decided not to use his name.)
I’ve never published in a ‘zine that had an online comments section, and I think it’s an interesting and potentially useful innovation. Potentially dangerous, too, if a surly author starts quarrelling with readers there. But interactivity is something online publications can give readers (and writers) in a way that print publications can’t, so this seems like a good way to work the medium in a way that the medium works.
EDF dropped me a line yesterday to say that they’re taking another flashfic of mine, “Brother Solson and Sister Luna.” This is a landmark for me, as it’s the first story I’ve sold that is in no way shape or form a Morlock story. (I’m not planning to abandon the Crooked Man, but it would be nice to feel I have more than one string to my authorial bow.)
Coolness!
Thanks!
Congratulations! Especially on broadening your repertoire — always deserving of a red letter day.
(Embarrassing admission: had to grab the dictionary to type “repertoire,” as it’s one of those words I always space out on the correct spelling.)
Thanks! And I wouldn’t worry about “repertoire”–French words are always tricky for me, anyway. The sound/spelling relationship is pretty arbitrary, and different from English’s arbitrariness. (Arbitraritude?)
I enjoyed “The Gordian Stone” a lot … good work!
I’ll keep an eye out for the non-Morlock story, too.
— Steve Goble
Thanks! (I’m looking forward to your alliterative poem at FS, by the way. In my view, English poetry went wrong when it abandoned the old alliterative measure.)
James … I bow to your wisdom on English poetry. I’m afraid my little offering, although modeled on alliterative works, has a different meter. I call it “alliterative” primarily because alliteration is the glue that makes it (I hope) a poem as opposed to a collection of words — and, being an amateur poet, I lack the poetic-scholar vocabulary to precisely tell you what form the poem uses. Mine is similar in feel to true alliterative verse, and uses a caesura, but the meter is different. I hope it doesn’t grate on your ears!
I have read Beowulf in numerous translations, and other alliterative works as well, and those were echoing though my mind when I wrote “Vainglorious.” So, maybe mine is an echo of alliterative verse.
We will now pause for a moment to consider what exactly snapped. 🙂
Good story, by the way.
-Jeff Stehman
Thanks!
The doctors will probably find out what snapped after the guys with the nets catch up with me. That won’t be soon, I hope.