If you follow my Facebook page, you might have seen a post I made a few days ago about how I had finally written down a story that I've had in my head since high school.
It's not very long - in fact I was surprised to find that it's just over 1,000 words, even with a few fleshed-out details that weren't part of the original idea. I think that I had thought it would be long because I see it so cinematically - it's so richly visual in my head - that I thought it would take forever to describe everything. But the written version doesn't have that much description, as it turns out.
I decided to write quick, clipped sentences when possible; a telegram figures prominently in the story, and I wanted to give the story that feel of a short, urgent document that just has the most vital information you need to know. I think that I actually did really well at achieving that while not sacrificing the emotion.
You won't be seeing the story on here any time soon. It's a holiday piece and I want to see if I can get it accepted for publication this Thanksgiving/Christmas. As I've mentioned on here a few times before, most publications won't accepted a story that has already been published elsewhere, and many of them consider sharing a story on your website to be publication.
But I do have a favor to ask of you all: if you know of somewhere that accepts short holiday stories - magazines, websites, radio shows, whatever - please let me know.