My short story, "Vancouver Dreams," was accepted for publication in the upcoming Summer issue of SNReview.

SNReview is an online publication that I discovered quite by accident.  I did a web search on "hockey fiction" and got a hit on Frank Haberle's short story "Digger," published at SNReview.  The online magazine itself is not a hockey fiction magazine, but more of a literary one.  Haberle's story had a hockey setting, though.

About the same time, I was trying to come up with a submission for MOTH Magazine (now on hiatus), which has a loose theme each issue.  Their next theme was "Vancouver."  I'd been wanting to write a hockey short story for a while and had an idea and after reading Haberle's story, I went ahead and wrote "Vancouver Dreams."

I submitted it to MOTH.  The editor there liked it, but the magazine was suspending publication.  Eventually, I submitted it to SNReview (riding Haberle's coattails, one could say!) and I just received the acceptance email today.

I want to say thanks to Frank Haberle for reading the story and for being supportive of it.  I also appreciate Kim Bannerman's positive comments from MOTH. Most of all, thanks to SNReview for accepting my story.  I'm thrilled.

Does that sound like an Academy Award speech?  Well, as always, an accepted story makes me gush.  Not like it happens every day, you know?

First off, help me congratulate Colin Conway for his story being accepted [see other authors]

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLap Clap clap clap.

Now, to demonstrate what an opportunistic bastard I am, I looked up Shred of Evidence and realized that their guidelines were good for "Good Shepherd," so I submitted it there.  It has also been submitted to Ascent, but no reply yet.

I haven't been very active in the short story department, concentrating instead on the novels and their revisions.  However, I will shortly be writing a prose version of the play "In The Room" (which I won't send to anyone until it has a decent title) and other ideas as they occur to me.

The trouble is, I have about six novels in the idea stage...so short stories aren't getting much focus, unless they burst from my mind almost fully grown.

Well, I finished LT Hart's story today.  It ended up being longer than I thought...a little over 11,000 words in all.  By comparison, No Good Deed was about 8600 words.

It was also one of the more sexual pieces I've written and I'm not sure how well those parts turned out.  I haven't written many sex scenes and they haven't been too graphic when I have, so again, this was a departure for me.  I thought it was necessary, though, to show how completely taken Hart was with his situation.

I also used this piece to flesh out a couple of other characters from River City...just small bits of information or characterization, but all things that will pop up again in future River City books and short stories.

When it came down to it, I decided, at least for now, to keep the title Good Shepherd.  It fits and I think that the alternate title might work better on a different story...maybe it will have to do with the female in this story or maybe something else entirely.  I really like the title, I just think it doesn't fit as well for this story and it is too obscure a reference.

After I let Good Shepherd sit for a few days and maybe get some feedback for it, I'll start looking for a place to submit it.

I worked on this one some more over the past couple of days...it has become longer than I expected, but I'm enjoying writing it.  Hart is a complete asshole, but it is challenging to write him honestly and do it in a way where he doesn't think he's an asshole, but still comes off that way even though it's him doing the talking...if that makes any sense.

Poor Hart.  He's become a hypocrite now.  At least, since he's got this problem, poor Officer Paul Hiero's dalliances have lost Hart's interest...which isn't actually good, since less than a year later Hiero's problems blow up for him in Some Degree of Murder.

Anyhow, Hart's story will probably be finished this weekend and I'll turn my attentions back to Waist Deep.  I've got some comments from Colin to digest and some minor changes to make, and then it's time to forge ahead.

But I think I'm going to enjoy the next day or two...and finishing Hart's story. 

Initially, I titled the story Good Shepherd as kind of an ironic poke at him being an IA Lieutenant who prides himself on what he does and holds himself above the other cops, but now he's become a hypocrite and is doing the same thing (even worse). 

However, tonight I was listening to some classic Springsteen in the car and the song "She's the One" from 1975 came on.  The whole song reminds me strongly of the woman in LT Hart's story...and the first line of the song is sweet..."With her killer graces and her secret places that no boy can fill."  So now I'm thinking of titling this story Killer Graces, Secret Places.

Of course, since I'm still in the process, I'll take any input from the peanut gallery.  Anyone?  Anyone? 

Double points given to anyone who listens to the song before voting.

Well, I didn't get any more writing done this weekend, but I did send off three stories.

Saving Grace, Vancouver Dreams and Round Trip all went out to online magazines.  If Saving Grace comes back, I'm going to try CRIME SCENE next.

I also had a cool idea for a novel (though it might end up a shorter work).  Right now, I'm calling it Slipping Through.  It would be sort of a science-fiction (soft science not hard) and have nothing to do with the River City Novels.

Another unpublished work.  I originally wrote this for "MOTH" magazine.  They had a theme word for each issue and it was Vancouver one issue.  I wrote this, but then they suspended operations (though the editor said she liked it).

This is essentially the story of a guy in his late-twenties who played hockey in college.  He never went anywhere with it, but due to the NHL lockout, he finagled a tryout with the Vancouver Canucks as a replacement player.

The story is about his tryout and about, as the title suggests, dreams.  Not the kind that come at night--the kind that go with goals (pun intended).

After the rejection (sorta) from Moth, I've started submitting this story elsewhere.

This one isn't titled yet.

Obviously, it features LT Hart, from the patrol series, SDOM and No Good Deed.  But in this case, he's the protagonist.

Hart knows all the secrets, or thinks he does, of the the men and women of the PD.  One of them involves a receptionist in the building where he works, who an on-duty officer may be courting.  He investigates this...and that's as far as I've gotten.  But I think he might just get involved with this little spinner...who is also very much loca.  And I don't mean crazy in the way that every woman is (relax, ladies, I know we seem just as crazy to you.  That's what makes us different from each other), but a touch beyond that.

I've got an idea where this will go, but no matter how it shakes out, we'll get another picture of Hart and maybe a reference or two to other characters...or even some secrets revealed.

This is the story of a guy who switches seats with a girl on the plane ride home and when he gets home, his wife/girlfriend spots a long blonde hair (that was the original title, btw) on his shirt and tips over on him.

What it's really about, though, is jealousy and infidelity...because he didn't cheat on her...but he thought about it...

This one is currently being submitted online...and may find itself tied into the River City universe someday, too.

This one is rated NC-17 for sexual content...

Essentially, it is about a guy and a girl.  She gives him a great blowjob.  Afterward, he tells her that she just made number one on the oral sex billboard chart...but makes the mistake of mentioning #2...

Having fallen into the pool, he now has to swim out.  Translation:  Now that he's mentioned it, he has to tell the whole story.

My writer friend Colin hates the beginning but loves the ending of this one.

It's a hard story to find a home for, but it's currently being submitted...

Saving Grace is based on a story I wrote shortly after high school.  I called it "Watching Her.  And She Waits."

And I actually wondered why no one accepted it when I submitted it.

Saving Grace actually preserves the core theme of the story, but it is radically re-written.  Some of the fantasy passages that were a page or two long became one or two sentences.  I guess I shouldn't say "fantasy" passages, because the whole story is kind of a fantasy in that the main character's perception of the world is all twisted.  He is an uber-romantic and sees everything through that haze.  The fantasy passages within the story are fantasies of his, but he is certain they will come true.

The reality, if you strip away his perception, is that he is a loser who is in love with a hooker he's never met, only observed from afar.  During this observation, he imagines that they are in love (or will be) and that he will rescue her from this life. 

Since it's unpublished, I won't spoil the ending for you...

Interestingly, the character of Grace pops back up in SDOM.  Colin makes excellent use of her in several chapters and I included her in one, too.  Of course, the perception that Virgil Kelley and Detective Tower have of Grace is decidedly different than that of our unnamed protagonist in this short story.

This story is currently being submitted online.

With regard to published short stories....you can click on three of them and read them in the online magazines where they were published.  It is a little cheesy having two of them published at A Cruel World, since I know the editor and have "associate editor" status.  But he solicited "No Good Deed" and he liked "Burning My Masterpiece" enough to want to publish them, so I say they're legit

(Another measurment might be what I think of his own stories that he published--were they worthy of publication?  Well, go to acruelworld.com and judge for yourself--Colin Conway is the author I'm talking about--but my answer is a resounding yes.  "Daddy's Little Girl," in addition to being the birthstory of Rolo and his crew is a gritty tale.  The cab story and the Blue Plate Special duo are also stories I told him he should send out to get published.  So I guess if those are legit, so are mine...)

Three of my stories were published about 15 years ago in small press magazines.  I did a google search on all three and came up with nil on the 'net.  I don't know if any are still publishing offhand...but I have my copies!

"Backroads" was the first one I sold, though it was for contributor's copies.  UNKNOWNS published it in May 1989.  It is just a vignette about a young man driving home from a movie on the backroads between the city and his small town.  It is winter and he drives fast, tempting fate.  He is unsure about himself or where he's going.  The brunt of the story is expressed, albeit with a clumsy metaphor, when he sees a meteor during the drive home and ends the story with a statement like, "Shooting stars are beautiful and they are bright, but I am not one of them."  I haven't read it in ages...and I was 21 at the time it was published...in high school when I wrote it, so you figure out what I was trying to say!

"Bill's Son," on the other hand, is a little more straightforward.  Published in October of 1989 in Wide Open Magazine (I received $15 and still have the check framed--first short story "sale"), it is about a guy who lives a safe, hum-drum life himself while vicariously living through the exploits of his co-worker's son.  As Bill's son does all the things he never did or will do, he plays it safe.  Until Bill's son dies (I think it was a car wreck) and he realizes that, albeit at 50 or so, he needs to live life to its fullest.  And that means taking a few chances.

"A Ride Home," which appeared in Starsong in October of 1990 is about a girl who dies in a drunk driving collision and the guy who is riddled with guilt over it.  He eventually kills himself (with pills) over it.  The final scene, which might be his last dreaming thoughts or might be his first moments in hell, consists of him walking out to his car (restored now) and getting in to find the living corpse of the dead girl in the seat next to him.  While it's a simplistic tale, I actually like the ending.  It's not terrifying or a gross-out, but it's a little spooky.

Now, as you can see, there's a large gap between 1990 and 2005...oh, about fifteen years.  Well, during that time, I did do some writing.  To be honest, it wasn't a lot of finished product, though I took a lot of notes and wrote down ideas and so forth.  The first Gulf war, then finding a civilian job, then a child, then scratching out a living, then starting a new career all put a crimp on my level of dedication to writing.  Around 1995, I started UARM...after working on that and starting BAWS, things went on hiatus a bit in Fall of 1996.  College while working full time had a lot to do with that.  Luckily, I did a lot of writing in college, so my writing skills (such as they are) didn't completely atrophy.

But it wasn't until 2004 that I stopped toying occasionally with things and got serious about writing again.  One of the elements that played into that was meeting Colin and having (finally!) another writer to talk to and share stuff with.  It's amazing how vital that connection and shared enthusiasm really is.  Other factors included where I was in my career and family life and the fact that I was just plain getting hungry for it again...starving, in fact.

Anyway, I have a number of unpublished short stories, but I'll save discussing those for another entry...and maybe another list.