Moving On

After the Elusive Muse was published, the bug burrowed deep and I started producing quite a few short pieces. At the time, I was also writing an epic fantasy novel (badly).

The second piece I put together on request from the same editor who published my first piece. This time it was a self-help piece on writing fantasy. During the course of putting together my epic piece, I'd found a number of tools which helped enormously. So I created the non-fiction essay on how to gather bits of needed information. I was very lucky to be paid for this piece as well.

To this point, I'd written two short pieces and sold them both. I continued to work on the novel with rose-coloured glasses firmly in place.

Third cab off the rank was an even smaller piece I wrote primarily for my youngest daughter. She was, and still is, an avid reader, so I thought I should put something together for her. What I came up with made her laugh. I figured my job was complete. Then, on a whim, I sent it off to Antipodean SF, where it was accepted and published in issue #117, and now sits in the archives of the Australian National Museum - that last bit blew me away. No payment this time, but a piece of mine will be kept for all prosperity in the National Archives.

Three for three. I was beginning to think this writing gig was easy.

Wake-Up Call

First Published @ Antipodean Feb-Mar 2008, Issue #117

Monday morning in the state chronology and tocsin device service centre:

"Good morning. Would you care for coffee?"

"Please, two sugars, black and very strong!"

"I'm guessing someone had a bad weekend?"

"I take it you haven't read the morning news feed yet?"

"What happened?"

"Mm. Remind me to ask exactly what the client needs in future."

"Why?"

"That alteration I made last week was the wrong one."

"What did you do?"

"Apparently the gentleman slept close to his window."

"So?"

"Rather than have the device gently shake him awake I changed its function to gently roll him out of bed."