Yesterday, I finished the second draft of my short story. It was original titled "The Wedding Dance," because that is the central event (oh, and the murder), but the dead body is found alone in a tiny fish cleaning house, locked from the inside. It's the Minnesota version of the locked room mystery.
So, the new title is, "The Locked Fish House Mystery." See how that works? Hopefully, the Minnesota Crime Wave will find it entertaining enough to print in their next anthology, though it's going through at least one more revision before I send it off.
Writing short stories is hard and not particularly rewarding, but I have to say I did enjoy making a secondary character from May Day into a main character in the short story. She's a real hoot to write.
I'm out of town for all of next week, so I'm going to write a lot of short paragraphs today so you feel full until then.
This Thursday, I'm returning to my hometown of Paynesville for a booksigning at Been Around Books from 4-7. Refreshments will be served. The bookstore is attached to an art gallery, and it should be a fun, cultural sort of event, so join me!
Also, in breaking news, a Phoenix, Arizona, mystery group is discussing May Day on Monday. I'm afraid I can't physically make it there, but I am available for online chats or phone conferences with out-of-state book groups, and I am available face-to-face for book groups meeting within two hours of Alexandria.
A friend sent me the secret life of the President video clip (see following post), and it's very clever. I bet it was more fun to be Clinton's pilot, though. And be sure to check out these hilarious videos (unless you have dial-up) recommended by Jeff on the First Offenders blog. Bye for now!
"Writing short stories is hard and not particularly rewarding..."
ReplyDeleteYeah...but if and when you get this story in the anthology I bet you will feel better about it!
And getting your name in an anthology with other writers is awesome marketing.
And here's a great article from today's Star Tribune about creative nonfiction (acknowledging that genre fiction is still the king of the hill, even more so than literary fiction.)
Exciting!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, of course, Lex Ham, and thank you for the interesting article. When do you find time to read the newspaper?
ReplyDeleteMy life is very exciting, Minge, and I used to manage just fine until my publicist took my stash of Valium and flew to Scotland...anyone know how his flight went? I've been so busy.