madness, I say!

I wrote a short story.  I know, amazing.  I haven’t written actual fiction in, uh, years.  Yeah, we’ll just leave it at a nice unspecific ‘years’.  Anyway, I was at the Dream Cafe, hanging with writerly friends, when I noticed that they have a theme calendar on their wall.  And on this theme calendar was an entry for a Parsec contest, with the theme ‘Metalic Feathers.’

Being of a curious nature, I went looking for more information, and found the Parsec homepage, with mention upon it of this contest.  And then I went home.  Laying in bed, about to trip happily off to dreamland, I suddenly knew what story I could tell.  I had the characters, their foibles, the plot, the great huge explosion, everything.  So, I wrote it.

And then I hid from it for a while.  A few weeks.  Somehow, when you write something, and then set it aside for a day or two, when next you read what you spent hours of brain juice creating it suddenly stinks like a polecat in heat.  Phew.  Eventually, Reesa and Kit badgered me into doing something with it.  I hammered out some kinks in it, made the extra stinky bits a touch more fragrant, and then made it manuscript format.

Print, envelope, address, trip to the post office, stick it in the slot.  That narrow, dark little slot from which there is no return.  No, not even if you stick your fingers in trying to get the envelope back.

I sent a 3,400 word short story to Parsec for their writing contest.  I can’t decide if it’s hubris to send my very first short story in ‘years’ out to a contest or if it’s just cause I’m that good.  I guess I decide that after the contest is over.

If I don’t win, I suppose I’ll edit it again, making it smell even better, and then send it out to pester various editors.

Oh, and just to make everyone crazy:  it’s a steampunk retelling of a rather famous Greek myth.  The title?

Daedalus.