The better class of surprise

[truepenny]

Unexpected short story: 723 words.

Dunno what to do with it--and unnerved by its extreme and uncharacteristic shortness--but it's nice to write a complete story in an hour and a half.

Comments

[space-parasite.livejournal.com]

I am deeply envious. I can write 723 words fairly often, but having the constitute an actual story is something I only dream of.

Go you!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

It's never happened before (my next shortest story, which I thought ridiculous in its brevity, is nearly three times as long), and I am in fact deeply disconcerted by the fact it's happened now. But I am so not complaining. *g*

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

I think in novel length. My few short stories are all excerpts from novels.

[pameladean]

You may have heard this already, but Jane Yolen tells of how smug she was to be selling to F&SF on a regular basis when so many fellow writers never could sell a story there. She finally asked the editor why he bought so many of her stories, and he looked at her for a moment and said, "They're so short."

I forget which editor this was. Certainly not Rusch. Might have been Ferman still. But I think F&SF still tends towards shorter rather than longer pieces.

(Mind you, you know at least six times as much as I do about selling short stories.)

Pamela

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I never used to be able to write short stories at all. It was all novels, all the time. Then, kind of all at once, I got the knack. Still scratching my head over that one.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard that anecdote before. Thanks!

I tend to use F&SF as a ritual deflowering for my short stories. (I'm sorry. That's an appalling metaphor. No, really, I grovel.) Their turnaround time is insanely fast, so I can send it to them before I have time to panic, and by the time I get it back, I've calmed down again and got the next place lined up. I think this ritual works because I don't believe F&SF will buy my stories anyway, EVER, so it feels safely like there's nothing at stake.

The little things I have to do to trick my mind into working. *sigh*

[pameladean]

Maybe it's a ritual deflowering of your expectations? No, sorry, never mind, I'll just grovel too.

When I was submitting stories to F&SF, they printed their form rejections on the backs of extra copies of the magazine cover. I would tell myself that I just wanted to see which cover I'd get this time. Some of them were rather old.

Pamela

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Owlswater.

And several Liavek stories.

Surely?