In a short time, another story of mine will be online,
published by The Coachella Review. It is titled Black Mirrors. The story is one
that I successfully took through deep revisions this summer.
Do I often do revisions? No. But I happened on a file
of my stories that had been marketed but weren’t accepted. I had retired but
not discarded them. I certainly had fresh eyes when I came back to these
stories; it had been five or six years since some were written. In the
meantime, I had gained some skills and like a good editor, I was able to see
the weaknesses and strengths of my stories.
This does take objectivity. I have a tendency to fall in love with my stories as I write them. My
darlings are perfect, I think, until I have time enough to detach.
This does take time. My summer, busy as it was, did have little blocks of home time that I
thought would suit my revision projects. I’m willing to add that it takes
confidence. I believed could make these
stories publishable.
When the acceptance email came through about Black
Mirrors, I checked my records. This is the eighth story of mine accepted so far
in 2018. Then a week or so later, I returned to the records to answer another
question. There are four revised stories of this year among those accepted. The other
four were new, recently written stories. Three of those are flash fiction,
something that I dabbled in this year for the first time. A decent tally, but
not to rest too long, it’s Oh. Onward!
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| A Newfoundland garden plot - a picture from my busy summer. |
