News: Giveaway Winner and New Publications

Season's Greetings!

I'm delighted to say that the Unlikely Heroes giveaway drew many entries. The winner of the digital copies of Green Light Delivery and Blue Diamond Delivery was David. Thanks bunches to all of you who entered. and thanks to Milo James Fowler for hosting the wonderful 'Tis More Blessed giveaway extravaganza!

Santa and his elves may be hard at work, but it's also a busy time around the writing workshop:

1. I've had eight drabbles (stories of exactly 100 words) accepted by SpeckLit. They will be published one at a time over the next few months.

2. One of my stories was accepted by Rainbow Rumpus, pending revisions, for their Spring 2014 issue.

3. Old Hedgy Times will publish my science fiction story "New World Symphony," about aliens who invade Earth by means of musical sound.

4. "Bark of the Covenant," the silly speculative YA story I co-wrote with Araminta Star Matthews, is now available on Amazon and B&N.

5. I'm working on the revision of my YA novel, Space Surfers.

6. Also for C&G, I finally finished the first draft of the third Webrid Chronicles novel, Red Spawn Delivery.

As you can see, I sure can use a short end-of-the-year break. I hope you get to take a break, too. All health and happiness to you and yours in the New Year!

- Anne

Milo James Fowler on writing short and making every word count

Milo James Fowler writes short fiction. I mean short. No, even shorter than that. He's really good at it and has published a great deal. I asked him to discuss this skill for brevity.

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Small Packages

I used to be verbose.

When I was a kid, I wrote 300-page novels and never felt the need to revise. I was having way too much fun for that.

But revision is important. Cutting and polishing are very good things.

So's a writing challenge every now and then.

When I started Write1Sub1 in 2011 to follow in Ray Bradbury's footsteps (writing and submitting a story a week), I couldn't halt the ideas once I opened the floodgates. While I didn't have time to flesh them all out into full-length tales, some were so evocative that they stood well enough on their own, despite their brevity.

Once I discovered microfiction and sci-fi/horror-flavored haiku, it was like the heavens opened and I saw into the glorious beyond. Microfiction—6 word stories, Twitter fiction, 6 sentence stories, drabbles—became a new creative outlet for me. I started jotting down mini-stories that could later become full-fledged tales of their own, and I brainstormed other ideas in a more poetic form through haiku.

Then I sent them out into the world in search of good homes.

Some of my favorite micro and haiku publications are Trapeze, Scifaikuest, Cuento, and 101 Ficton, and I've enjoyed sharing my byte-sized tales with their readers. What writer doesn't like being published?

But I also appreciate the challenge—particularly with drabbles and haiku. 101 Fiction publishes 100-word stories with 1-word titles. Cramming a Captain Quasar tale into 100 words has been a lot of fun, and as far as haiku goes, I'm a stickler for the 5-7-5 syllable count—not because it really matters anymore in English language haiku, but because it provides me with a higher hurdle to cross. Next month, I'll be the featured poet in the winter issue of Scifaikuest with 11 of my haiku included in their print publication. I'm super stoked and can't wait to get my contributor's copy in the mail.

Will all of my micro tales and haiku eventually become full-length stories of their own? "Identity Thief" started out as a haiku and became a short story available from Musa Publishing. "Grandpa's Bluetooth," published by Liquid Imagination, started out as Twitter fiction. Maybe the rest of my small packages will evolve in like manner; maybe not.

I'm okay with that.

I don't have to be verbose all the time, after all.

But I can keep challenging myself to make every word count.

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You can learn more about Milo James Fowler on his website.

You can purchase Maikro, his collection of haiku and microfiction, on Amazon.