Thursday, April 30, 2009

April

With an hour and half left in the month, I think it's safe to assume I won't be receiving any rejections or acceptances before midnight rolls around. This month was both good and bad, but mostly just slow. I had two acceptances and four rejections...and two of the latter were for the same story. I sent out several pieces at the end of March, so May and June ought to be loaded with rejections.

The mother-in-law is doing better and I can actually spend some waking hours at home rather than the hospital. Still, I am taking tomorrow off from work. I need another day to rest.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to think of an idea for a series of flash stories. I'd like to come up with a character or two that I could feature in several short tales, just for an exercise in writing if nothing else. I also wanted these stories to be slightly humorous, or at the very least, retain a light feel to them. My problem is, no ideas sounded good. The adventures of a traveling swordsman? Can you get any more cliche than that? How about a pair of paranormal investigators who have comical encounters of the spectral kind? Snooze. So far the best I can come up with is a pair of con men - one with academic training, the other more skilled at physical things - who find themselves in goofy situations as they try to locate, loot or outright steal priceless artifacts around the world. I'm still mulling it all over. Maybe I'll just a few more stories about Mendrik the dirt goblin.

5 comments:

Fox Lee said...

You could always write about hookers. Wacky hooker shenanigans!

Cate Gardner said...

Don't try to rush your recurring characters - they'll come to you in their own time.

Benjamin Solah said...

My favourite way to find interesting characters is to eavesdrop on conversations on public transport. It's great when you only hear bits of the conversation and make up the rest with your over active imagination.

Jamie Eyberg said...

You month sounded strangely like mine. I have never had very much luck with recurring characters, unless I kill them off and mention then in passing in another story.

Aaron Polson said...

I'm with Natalie. How about hookers on public transport?