Dear Santa,

I’ve been, well, if not terribly good at least not terribly bad this year. So for Giftmas, I would really love:

• A hot oil popcorn popper like the one we used to have when I was a kid. I can’t actually find that exact model anymore, I guess they don’t make them these days, but this one here is similar enough to satisfy my nostalgia and provide me with super duper yummy popcorn.
  
• I would also really love to “become a chimpanzee’s best friend“. Please. Pretty please?
• I’m all about the Sims 3 these days but I’m feeling a little limited with my options for ‘stuff’ at this point. I’d positively adore any of the expansions I don’t have yet, or even Sims Points so I can buy some of the ‘stuff’ collections they put on sale on the website.
• Lastly, if you were feeling super generous, Santa. I could also really use some baseboards and riser thingers for my bathroom and kitchen. If we don’t finish them up soon they are just going to blend into the background and we’ll never get them done. I’ve got the paint for both and I’d really like a chance to use it.

Thank you Santa.

Love,

Rhonda

In more directly writing-related news, Shadows is still coming along well. I’ve had a few bumpy patches in regard to ordering some of my scenes, but I still feel very good about this draft. I’m at 22,692 words and still going strong. Since I started working on it this time I haven’t missed a workday and the consistency feels good. Very good.

I wish I could say I’ve been as consistent with my #novpad this year, but I’d be lying. I have 9 poems, I should have 18. But it’s okay. I plan to keep going through the prompts, one at a time, until I finish them all, even if it takes me until January. For me the point of #novpad is mostly to be writing, and I’m doing that, even if it’s not one poem a day. I’m still pleased with my productivity, so it’s all good.

A couple years ago my friend BD did a personal challenge where she wrote for at least 15 minutes everyday for a year. I’m thinking about doing something similar. I don’t usually write on weekends, so I’d let myself off the hook then, but maybe expecting myself to write every weekday would be good for habit-forming and productivity. You know, assuming it’s not just setting myself up for failure considering the cyclical way my productivity works. This will require further thought, but I’m considering it, and if I do attempt it I’ll need moral support so if anyone else wants in let me know.

And let me know if you have a public holiday gift list. I’d love to take a look.

So, I’m working on Shadows. What will be the final draft until I have either an agent or an editor to help me apply the final layer of polish. It’s going very well. I started writing this draft longhand in February and finished it in June (I think). I did a workshop in early spring that meant I had to send stuff in for critique, so I broke my rule about letting my work rest a few months before revising for the first few chapters, but once the workshop was over, I shoved those critiques back into a drawer to mellow along with the rest of the draft. That was a good choice. Feedback I’d thought was frivolous or just plain wrong looks very sound and insightful once you give it a few months distance. Also, the story which I’d had personal issues with, is stronger than I’d remembered.

So, yay!

I’m revising as I transcribe from my notebooks onto my computers. It’s been interesting. I think years of NaNoWriMo combined with my natural inclination toward wordiness have taught me some bad habits — or maybe it’s just that the draft I’m transcribing was a fresh draft. A second first draft, as I like to call it, so I can expect some… badness. Still I laughed as I revised “…drew a smile on her lips.” to “She smiled”. Then I opened up a new Word document to track some of the best/worst examples of my wordy-ass (and just plain awkward) writing. Allow me to share

drew a smile on her lips –> she smiled
for having not been paying attention –> for not paying attention
The liquor seemed to have done more than loosen his tongue, it had given it wings -> The liquor hadn’t just loosened his tongue, it had given it wings. -> The liquor had given his tongue wings.
The smile that filled her face –> Colby’s smile
He paused, looking around him –> he paused, looking around
as he began to clear a spot –> he cleared a spot
I’m hoping the THING would be able to help make… –> I hope the THING will make…

There are several other examples already but I can’t share them without context or risk of spoilers. As much as some of these make me roll my eyes at myself a little bit, I’m actually really excited by my ability to notice them in my own work and revise them out. That feels like growth to me. Progress. And in this case, progress is good.

Right now I’m estimating that this book is going to finish up about 65k words. That’s a little shorter than I wanted, but it’s still a decent word count for a YA fantasy novel, and best of all, the plot is much stronger in this version than any of its predecessors.

I’m currently at 10,737 words transcribed and revised. Whoot!

As for NovPad… I’m um. Behind. A lot behind. My poem for day four turned into a short story. I’m hoping to make some progress toward catching up today, but I’d planned that yesterday too and it didn’t happen. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

He’s got his game face on in this picture — we were in the lab and he was pouring things into test tubes for me to photograph. He’s cool like that.

*Insert some sort of clever segue here between anniversaries and music*

Today I’ve got a guest blog over at Beth Cato’s blog. It’s all about music and stories. Check it out Once you’ve read my blog post poke around Beth’s site a bit more. I’m the third guest blogger she’s had there recently talking about music. Also, she’s just kinda awesome.

*Insert one more clever segue*

I’m working on a collaborative project with Jennythe_reader. We hooked up via 2xCreative (which I’ve mentioned before here). We’re actually doing a couple projects together. For the first, I sent her a poem I’d written and she is writing it out all pretty-like and then embellishing the paper. I don’t think my description does it justice, but you can hear her talk about it a little bit here. Anyway, I kind of wanted to do something more. Partly because my time investment was pretty small this month (I already had the poem written and only had to send it to her) and also partly because I wanted to do something different. Whenever I work on a collaborative project I provide words in some form or another. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but Jenny, well, Jenny is a fabric artist. It just so happens that I paint fabric. How could we not do something that combined those talents?

I dug out my fabric painting stuff from where it was tucked into a corner of the basement and painted three pieces. I will be popping these into the mail to Jenny this week and I’ll keep you updated about what she creates with them. I can’t wait to see!

In other, writing-related news, though I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, I am doing the November Poem-a-Day challenge. My theme is going to be ‘Classic Horror’ with a focus (I hope) on ghosts.

I’ve also begun transcribing and revising Shadows. Right now I’m only working on the revision part (the first couple chapters were already transcribed), and I’m 4,785 words in. I’d love to use a word count meter of some sort here, but that’s tricky when you don’t know how many words you’re going to end up with LOL I think my last estimate was about 70k but at this point, it’s all a big question mark.

Finally, did I mention that it’s my anniversary? Happy Halloween everyone and Jo, I love you.

So, I need to write a blog entry this week, but I haven’t got the time. My solution? This is an essay I wrote for school. I’m going to share it in lieu of actually writing something fresh. I apologise, but it seems kind of appropriate because last week I edited a blog entry and handed it in as an essay for the same course LOL

Building a Reputation

So, you want to be a writer. I’ve got some bad news for you—getting published is easy, the tricky part to building a writing career is developing your reputation. Remember, you’re not just selling a story, you’re selling an idea about who you are. Each publication is a brick in the wall that will grow to become your brand and represent you as an author and the mortar between those bricks is your reputation.

Not only do you need to build a reputation with readers, but you will find that establishing one with editors will also affect your career. Every communication you have with an editor will flavor their impression of you. It’s important to set the tone of your future relationship in your very first email to a new editor. Make sure they know you aren’t doing anything as demeaning as submitting your work for consideration, rather you are offering them the use of it. Emphasize that you are doing this as a personal favor to them because your work is vastly superior to everything else they have published to date (even your mother thinks so, and she doesn’t usually read the genre you write in).

For example, it’s good to note that what is expected in professional correspondence is always changing. “Dear Mr. (or Ms.) Editor” may have been the traditional way to begin correspondence once upon a time but nowadays with the widespread use of email and texting, it is perfectly acceptable to start your email without a salutation. You may also skip the complimentary closing. Why bother with obsolete niceties? They take precious seconds out of your day.

If you do decide to include a salutation and address the editor by name, it doesn’t actually matter if you spell their name correctly, so long as they can figure out who you meant. Gender, also, doesn’t matter. If you address a letter to Mr. Doe and then discover they are actually Ms. Doe, at least you got the last name correct. In baseball batting .500 is fantastic. The same applies in publishing. Likewise, while it’s good to mention the name of the publication when you submit or query, if it has any unusual spellings, feel free to ignore them or, better yet point out the editor’s mistake in choosing to spell their magazine or publishing house the way they have.

You don’t need to bother making sure your work fits the genre of the publication you’re offering it to because it is so well-written any editor worth their salt will be happy to publish it regardless. If you happen to find an editor who isn’t willing to accept it because it “doesn’t fit their market” they obviously don’t know what they are talking about. Make sure you reply to their rejection letter and tell them so as emphatically as possible.

What’s more, don’t worry about following the editor’s guidelines for formatting submissions. You’ve formatted your story the way you have for a reason and they are called submission guidelines, which means they are more like suggestions than rules. On a related note, don’t worry about fixing typos or revising before you send your work in. That is the editor’s job. If you made it perfect before you sent it to them, what would they do to earn their pay cheques?

Finally, unless you want to be known as a pushover, once editing on your piece has begun it is vital you make sure the editor knows this is not an equal partnership. You are the boss. Make them fight for every comma they want to alter and absolutely refuse to budge on changing anything bigger than a single word or punctuation mark. It’s at this stage that phrases like “That’s my personal writing style” will serve you very well.

You can’t let editors mess around with your work or your style will be changed until it’s unrecognizable. Editors may say things like “This will make for a stronger story” or “But it’s nonsensical when it’s written this way” but don’t believe them. They aren’t trying to help you improve your work, they are dumbing it down and making it like everyone else’s.

You are not like everyone else. You are unique, special; like a snowflake. When you stick up for yourself, people, both readers and editors, will respect you. Don’t let yourself get pushed around and remember that no matter how many years of experience an editor has, when it comes to your work, you are the authority.

By following these tips you’re guaranteed to make an impression on the editors who work for you. That’s what you want, for people, editors and readers alike, to have an instant visceral reaction when they hear your name. That is what will help bind your work together and build a career, brick by brick, that will be beyond compare.

My grade, in case you are curious (and who wouldn’t be?) was 70% because my teacher couldn’t tell if I was being sincere in my advice or not. My original draft made mention about how editors talk to one another and compare notes, maybe I ought to have left that in to help clarify my position. Oh well. Next time I’ll make my tone a little more obviously sarcastic

Also, in case you’re curious. Yes. Every example up there has happened to me when I’m wearing my Editor hat.

Lastly, in writing-related news, I have a couple zombie apocalypse poems up at Dark Chaos this week.

C’mon, admit it — you do too.

Jim C. Hines is probably the luckiest author I know when it comes to getting great covers. Well, maybe he’s tied with Carrie Jones, hers are awesome as well.

I’ve had some covers I loved and some I was less fond of. Over the past week or so I’ve had my work included in two new publications, which means two new covers. I adore these two, so I thought I’d share them with you. I especially love them because they are so different from one another, but each publication contains one of my zombie poems.

Firstly we have Eclectic Flash. One of my poems, Cover Up, is included in the most recent issue of Eclectic Flash. Check out this cover:

Because they use a flash player to provide their free online issue I had to take a screenshot, which means the quality isn’t as good here as it is at the website. Not by a long shot. You should click on the picture to go to the website and see for yourself. I adore that cover, it’s so cute!

I also have a poem (titled White Noise) in a spiffy new zombie anthology:

I also love this cover. The cartooniness (if it’s not a word it should be) is pretty sweet

Two very different covers, but I like them both. What do you think? Also, do you have a favourite book cover of all time? Share the love, I wanna see it

I guest-wrote another column for Marge back in February 2008. To celebrate my new column going live, I thought I’d share the old one here. The introduction was written by Marge Simon. Enjoy

Blood and Spades: Poets of the Dark Side
February 2008 / Volume 19, Issue 91 HWA Newsletter

It’s my pleasure to welcome Niteblade Editor, Rhonda Parrish. Here is a lady who supports both writers and poets of the dark fantastic and I think she’s doing a great job! Rhonda says, “I wanted to start an e-zine, to see what things looked like from the other side of the rejection letter, as it were. I chose to make it a fantasy and horror magazine after reading somewhere that fantasy and horror were dying genres. Dying genres indeed! I intended to contribute to the vast mound of proof to the contrary. I think the quality of the work in the pages of Niteblade speak loudly to the fact that fantasy and horror are not dying genres. Now if I can just finish revising my first fantasy novel and get it into some slush piles …”

Check out Rhonda’s Web sites: http://www.rhondaparrish.com and http://www.niteblade.com.

* * *

A Poet’s Coming of Age

Rhonda Parrish

I used to love poetry, both reading and writing it. When I was younger I’d often get lost in a poem or catch myself composing verse in my mind when I should have been doing something else (usually math). In my small-town high school my familiarity with and love of poetry was well known and a point of pride for me. Alas, the disillusioning years subsequent to high school combined with a series of bad critique groups throttled my love of poetry (let’s call it Bob for short) and threw it, barely breathing, into a shallow grave.

Years later, after leaving my muse to rot in the same coffin as Bob, I cracked the lid. Sunlight burst in, and my muse and Bob whimpered and cowered in a corner. Much coaxing and cajoling later, they emerged, blinking and staggering. Though I nursed my muse, spoon-feeding her and helping her to grow before revealing her to the world, I denied Bob. Even as I wrote poetry I claimed, loudly and with vehemence, “I ain’t no poet.”

So it was, that when I first imagined Niteblade the poems were meant as filler–something to aid in marketing and fill the pages. Thankfully for Bob, the quality of poetry submissions I received inspired me to pay more attention to him, and he thrived. I stopped denying his existence, proudly telling people I was a writer, editor, and a poet. Bob is much healthier now, and growing stronger every day. It’s at his urging that I’ve written this short essay about what I look for in a poem for Niteblade.

When I look at poetry submissions to Niteblade I consider several things, many of which are intangible and strictly subjective, but some are pretty straightforward. First of all, I want to be entertained. To me, a poem needs to have something to say, a story to tell. I want to hear the tale and I don’t want to have to look too hard to find it. Basho’s haiku about the frog jumping into the pond may be considered by many to be brilliant because of its use of juxtaposition and what not, but to me it’s just a story about a frog jumping into a pond and, frankly, I don’t care. I don’t want to analyze a poem, I want to enjoy it. All the juxtaposition, alliteration, metaphor, and symbolism don’t mean anything to me if the poem’s story isn’t interesting.

Poems that have been accepted in Niteblade have told many tales. They’ve covered subjects from serial killers and killer plants to fairy babysitters and unrequited vampiric love. Each poem has its story to tell and does it with style and aplomb, capturing my attention with the first line and holding it until the last. As an example, here is a short poem I wrote which (I hope) tells a story in very few lines:

The Color of Shame

Drained of blood,
he traded his eternity for hers.
Sated, she smiled
With lips stained
the color of shame.

I’ve had to pass on many poems because I just had no idea what they were saying. I’m a bit lazy because of the whole “I don’t want to analyze a poem I want to enjoy it” thing, but I’m not stupid. If, after reading the poem three or four times I still don’t get it, I like to think the problem isn’t with me. I think implying rather than telling is a powerful tool for use in poetry–it can lead to those “ah-ha” moments we all love–but if the writer is too vague, the only person who can appreciate the piece is them.

Along the same line is my final point–a little cheese is not necessarily a bad thing, if you acknowledge it. I’ve written plenty of cheesy poetry; it’s fun and entertaining, so why not? The key, as I see it, is to not try and pass it off as high art. It’s fun, it’s fluff, and that’s all there is to it. For example, my poem “The Sepultress” is pure cheddar, but I like it:

The Sepultress

Her silken song of wind and wave
Called unto those beyond the grave
“Awake!” she cried, “And come to play!”
“I’ve only ’til the break of day.”

And to the shore the dead did come,
In groups of two and one by one
Once there they danced upon the sand
Whilst wicked waves served as the band.

A thousand corpses bobbed and swayed-
Cold bones ratt’ling a serenade
“Dance my children,” I heard her shriek
And terror made my knees go weak

From the shadows I watched their throes
While a foul stench assailed my nose.
With my shirt up over my face,
I loosed my guts, to my disgrace.

Above the bluffs, I spent the night
Afraid I might just die of fright
And when the dawn at last did break
All of the dead began to quake.

The power drained from empty eyes
As sunlight reached across the skies
Touched, she writhed upon the beach
Yet further still the beams did reach.

They swept across her gory crew
Who fell; puppets with strings cut through
I stood, transfixed as the tide rose
And shivered in my filthy clothes.

I watched the corpses float to sea
And knew no one would believe me
If I to them, did run and tell
About the night I spent in hell.

Because the water swept away
All evidence of their soiree
I lack the courage to be bold–
This pen’s the only soul I’ve told.

(Originally Published by NewMyths.com)

Bob is alive, well and satisfied that, no matter its role when I first envisioned it, poetry has taken a spot of equal importance as prose in the pages of Niteblade. In fact, I have it from a reliable source that the next cover will be based on a poem …

***

As an “interesting” footnote. It took a lot of willpower for me to not edit this column as I posted it, in particular I really wanted to remove the first line from “The Color of Shame”

We’ll have to wait and see if NaNoWriMo plunges me right back into the pit. It could happen. I have a basic premise for the story and one character and that’s it. Not exactly a strong platform to go into NaNo on, but it’s what I have so I’m going to work it. My plan is to embrace this as a chance to feel out the story and find out how to tell it. I don’t expect anything good but I’m not going to resort to any of the word-padding ideas so popular in November. We’ll see how it goes.

In other news, my poem After The Storm is up at Tales of the Zombie War. They have a comment option so you can tell me how much you hate it (Kidding, please don’t. I want you to like it. Like it, I say! :-p).

Finally, World of Warcraft has recently gone through a very disruptive patch. It’s been kinda crazy and overwhelming, in no small part because I have far too many characters with too many specs that I need to relearn how to play. Still, I’m muddling through. Right before the patch, however, I allowed my WoW nerdiness and my fiction writing to collide and snuck off to take a screenshot to share.

Please note, this screenshot is rather spoilerific if you’ve not read Shades of Green. Also, if you’ve not read Shades of Green you won’t likely find it very amusing, so click with caution.

This is my druid, Z’thandra. As of right now she is level 71. I wanted to take a shot of her before they took away my tree form, and what better place than one of the swamps in WoW that helped inspire the swamp in Aphanasia?

I hope this made you smile, it did me

Firstly, it’s overcast and rather blah out there. My mood is strongly connected to the weather, more so in recent years than in the past. It’s really making me dreary and ass-draggy. For obvious reasons, that’s not my favorite.

It’s also my volunteer day in a grade two classroom. Usually I find that time energizing, positive and fun, but sometimes when you see the issues, huge issues, that these kids are having to deal with it’s depressing. They are seven years old for goodness sake, they shouldn’t need to worry about these sorts of things. I, obviously, can’t go into details, but I’m sure you can all use your imaginations. Teachers — I commend you. Truly. For some kids school is the only safe or stable place they have. It’s -so- important!

Sadly, many of the kids who struggle the most with reading are the ones who would benefit most from being able to do it — to use it as a sort of escape. That really shows me that the little bit of time I spend every week with them is important, seeing them progress is usually very rewarding… Today was hard though.

Plus, some people (of the grown-up variety) I care about are going through some tough times and having to make difficult decisions today. I’m keeping them in my thoughts too. They’ve got it harder than I, no question at all, but they are borrowing a little bit of my energy too (even if they don’t know it).

It might sound as though I’m feeling sorry for myself, and I’m not. I’m just pretty low energy/motivation. As much as I adore zombies on somedays I feel like I belong more amung their number than that of the living. Today is one of those days.

Speaking of zombies, I’m not all gloom and doom today despite how it may seem. One of my zombie poems, White Noise, was published at Everyday Weirdness today. Yay! I love this poem, it’s one of my favorites in my slowly-increasing zombie collection. I hope you’ll read it and like it too.

If you write for publication you will get rejected. People, no matter how awesome thay are, may not understand the extent of that or how it affects you unless they are also writers. Jo is fantastic. He is incredibly supportive of me and my writing. Wholly and completely. Yet, I remember a year or two ago I was happy about receiving a personalised rejection from an agent. Jo made some sort of joke, I don’t remember it exactly, what I remember is what it helped coalesce in my brain. That is this: As I writer I deal with a ridiculous amount of rejection. In order to stay sane and be able to keep doing this I need to learn to celebrate every victory, no matter how small. That means personal rejections.

It’s true.

My acceptance ratio, according to Duotrope’s Digest, for the past twelve months is 27.27%. I think this is a bit of an aberration based on the fact I’m not submitting as much so far this year than last. Last year my acceptance ratio was about 15%. Let’s play with that number. A 15% acceptance ratio means that people are telling me no 85% of the time. I send out ten pieces I get told eight (and a half) times. Crazy! You need to develop a “thick skin” or find a way to deal with rejection if you’re going to keep plugging away in the face of that. As if that weren’t bad enough, I’m told by Duotrope’s Digest that my acceptance ratio is higher than the average for people submitting to the same markets as me. That means I’m stinking lucky to be accepted 15% of the time.

Lucky.

Compounding the number of rejections we, as writers, have to deal with is the way we perceive those rejections. We give them so much more weight than they deserve. Truly. For example, one of the people who co-wrote the poem “Alone” which we sold to Sorcerous Signals blogged about it recently and said something about the huge number of rejections the piece recieved before being sold. He, Arnold Emmanuel, actually said, and I quote:

…Rhonda sent out submission requests and omg, lots of rejection letters.  I thought to myself “Oh well, it won’t be published, that’s okay, least we tried,” and then one day all of a sudden I get an email that says something like “Remember that poem Alone we worked on,” and I’m thinking oh, and another rejection letter, but no, we got published!

How many rejection letters did we collect on the poem before selling it? How many ‘nos’ did we get before he figured ‘Oh well…’ and gave up on that poem being published? Two. Two. And not two markets that are easy to place work with either. I’m talking about Lone Star Stories and Goblin Fruit.

Now, lest it seem like I’m picking on Arnold, I’m not. I’m merely using his words to show how subjective our perception of rejection is because I think we give it too much power. I’ve another friend who wrote a story with the intention of submitting it to a specific market, sent it to that market and got turned down. His reaction is to trunk the story. I was shocked. Really? All that work and you’re going to say ‘Oh well…’ and give up on it after one submission? See? Again, giving a rejection notice too much power.

As an editor I can tell you, someone passing on your submission does not mean the submission is bad. It really doesn’t. Honest, honest, honest.

Remember Heinlein’s rules for writing*?

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

I tend to disagree with #3, but as for 4 & 5 he’s so right. Okay, occasionally I will stop submitting a story and trunk it, for whatever reason, but not after only a handful of rejection notices.

Rejection is a part of writing for publication. It’s something we all need to deal with and the better our coping skills are the more likely we are to succeed because, when it comes down to it, perseverance is a HUGE ingredient in the recipe for success in this industry.

When I first started submitting my work I picked ‘easier’ markets who had higher acceptance ratios than others. I didn’t mind if I didn’t get paid then, I just wanted to see my name in print. For me, that was a good way to go because it allowed me to deal with rejection on a smaller scale than I would have been if I’d started out submitting to pro markets. Slowly, over time as my confidence built my standards rose. Now I don’t submit to markets that don’t offer me some sort of payment and I enjoy sending my stuff to the tougher markets. It’s a challenge. (Just wait until they start saying yes, then there will be a hell of a party here at the Parrish household )

I also, like I told Jo so long ago, deal with rejection by celebrating my victories, even the little ones. Every acceptance, every personal rejection, every sincere compliment for my work is worthy of celebration, and gets it. As for when something gets rejected, my favorite way to deal with that is to immediately send it out again. Then, instead of dwelling on the rejection and feeling bad I can feel hopeful and optimistic about potential acceptance at the new market.

A friend of mine did a blog entry about rejection recently and asked if it ever stops stinging, even a little bit. For me the answer is yes. I am disappointed when someone passes on a piece I’ve sent them, but I’m not hurt. There’s a distance between myself and my writing that wasn’t there in the begining, and an understanding that really, sometimes stories and poems just aren’t a good fit. It doesn’t mean they aren’t a good read.

How do you deal with rejection?

On a related, but happier note, I sold a zombie poem, “Fluffy” to Diakaijuzine this morning. Yay!

*Robert J. Sawyer added a 6th rule that I think is fabulous. That rule being “Start work on something else.”

Also, a while back a group of us from NaNoLJers worked together on a group poetry project. The result is the poem “Alone“, which we sold to Sorcerous Signals. That poem went live at the beginning of the month. For anyone who reads Niteblade the style of the artwork accompanying our poem may look familliar — it was done by Marge Simon. I love her work so it was an honor to have her illustrate mine (again ).

One of the best parts about writing “Alone” and getting it published is that it is the first paid publishing credit of a couple of my fellow poets. It made me happy to be involved in their first publication. Very happy.

If you write what was your first publication?

Mine was a short poem, a rictameter, in a little magazine called ‘The Storyteller’. They didn’t pay anything, in fact the publication cost me money because my ego demanded I buy a copy of the magazine*. The poem was called ‘Snowflakes’ and was sweet little piece about walking in the snow. The thing is it wasn’t until after it was published that I realised the syllable count on the poem was wrong. Oops.

*Note to self: This is a good topic for a blog entry in the future.