death makes you prioritize
this one starts out sad (pet death)
this begins with something horrible: our beloved cat sweet baby ray got very sick, seemingly very suddenly, and we let him go on saturday. in retrospect, it probably wasn’t all that sudden, but he already had chronic respiratory problems, and his behavior changes in the last two months seemed to be a response to the kitten’s arrival. but he took a turn, and by the time we saw our vet on saturday the kindest thing to do was let him go to sleep.
it fucking sucks.
while we were waiting for the diagnosis, i got an email accepting one of my short stories for publication in a really great online magazine. talk about whiplash! the universe was awfully prompt with that one, a terrible attempt at balancing the scales. (or maybe—probably—it’s just a coincidence. doesn’t matter.)
twenty-four hours later i found myself checking the submissions grinder, despite having just one story out right now and knowing that magazine isn’t sending responses yet. and i suddenly thought, what if i just…stop?
i haven’t written a sffh short story in over a year; i’ve tightened up a few older ones—and sold one of those—but all of my writing since then has been long(er) form, with the exception of a story that will probably be novelette length and is a romance set in the same world as my novel. (i have no idea what i’ll do with it! maybe my novel will sell and it will be bonus material! i don’t know and it doesn’t really matter yet.)
i started submitting short fiction (and the occasional poem) nine years ago. it took a very, very long time for me to sell anything, and an even longer time to feel like i was getting anywhere. this year is, honestly, when i started feeling like i had any momentum. and oh, how ironic, when i haven’t had a story idea in so long. at least, not that kind of story.
i’ve had twenty-four pieces published or accepted for future publication, and some of them reprinted, too. three poems, twelve flash fictions, and nine longer (over ~1200 words) short stories. i’ve been in asimov’s twice, weird horror twice, and will be in worlds of possibility three times (julia, whose project wop is, has bought five pieces from me, one for fireside and one for mermaids monthly). my fusion fragment story was a finalist for an award. one of my flash stories went viral on twitter before it became an unusable cesspool, and got twice as many page views in a single day as the entire magazine usually gets in a month.
i’ve had other amazing opportunities, too. i guest edited a flash fiction series at interstellar flight magazine, and got to choose twelve incredible stories to publish. i had such a great time reading submissions that i now volunteer as a reader at fusion fragment.
i’m not, like, retiring. short fiction is my first love. but i am taking a hiatus. and i think it’s because losing ray made me reevaluate how i want to spend my time, and my first thought was to reclaim some of it.
i have a novel on submission and another one in my agent’s (i assume outrageously long) queue for her to read and hopefully work on the next draft with me. i’m working on an outline for a possible future book (i already have several others outlined, shh). i have always worked on a hundred (conservative estimate) projects at a time, frantically submitting stories all the while, but what if i just slow down? focus on the projects and not the noise?
when my dad died five and a half years ago, i got through the raw and immediate grief by writing a novel, a contemporary young adult retelling of the three musketeers. i’m still bummed that no agents wanted to take that one on (i think it is pretty great!) but the important thing is that i wrote it, and once i did? i couldn’t stop writing novels. eventually i wrote the one that got me an agent, and the process of actually working toward publication for that novel has been an exercise in patience.
i worried that i was being reactionary in even considering this—i’ve considered giving up before, mostly because it’s hard, and even though this is not that, i worried that it could be. but then something happened that is always a sign that i already know what to do: the idea of taking a hiatus made me feel absolutely at peace. it feels so right.
and i can change my mind tomorrow. (it would be nice to sell a twenty-fifth piece.)
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october’s flash story at interstellar flight magazine is “I Demand Knives” by Sasha Brown, a wickedly efficient slasher with a twist. (not that kind of twist. you’ll see what i mean in the very first paragraph.) this was the first ifp submission that i knew without a doubt i had to have, and i’m so glad we got to publish it.
***
p.s. it feels tacky to add this, but pet death is cruelly expensive. it cost us about $800 to not bring our cat home. if you can spare a few bucks (and truly, only if you won’t miss them!), i’d be really grateful. theo has a checkup and vaccines due this week, and as of right now i am not sure how we’ll pay for that. my freelance work got off cycle last month, so i won’t be paid for some of it until november, and that’s a hit we couldn’t afford. ❤️ venmo and paypal are both @noirbettie. again: only if you can.