My cute story is selected for professional publication
Last year my story This is Spärkle Tap was selected – in competition with dozens of others – to be included in a professionally-published anthology of speculative fiction.
Here’s how it happened.
I don’t read a lot of science fiction and fantasy nowadays. Not since I worked through the high school library and then my uncle’s extensive library of classics.
Some. I loved Andy Weir’s The Martian and his follow-up books for their inventive hard science plots. Neal Stephenson’s Anathaem was awesome, at least to begin with.
Stephen King’s Fairy Tale was a marvellous example of practical storytelling in a fantasy world. His Dark Tower series is a masterpiece.
These are books that I race through and sigh when there’s nothing left.
I’m more likely to be reading non-fiction or some airport book nowadays.
But I keep my eyes and ears open.
And I’ve always got an idea or two bubbling away. There’s a time-travel series I’d like to nail down. Or finish off the epic I began year before last about an alternate world order.
One day.
I had an idea somewhere inside. About a piece of technology that could do amazing things to your body. I couldn’t quite find a hook to hang it on.
Until one day I saw that the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild here in Australia was asking for submissions to their annual anthology.
The theme was – no, I’m not making this up – the human body.
It came to me
I naturally thought of the spec fic story I’d been thinking about. In the intervening time my subconscious had been quietly shuffling pieces into place and I saw that I could make it work.
I even had a couple of months before submissions closed.
Two months later, with the midnight deadline only a few minutes away, I hit the [Submit] button and sent it off.
A few minutes later I thought of about a dozen improvements I could make. For one thing, the ending was a little weak and (oddly enough) rushed.
Once I’d made the initial submission I could submit revisions, so I had a window.
I sent off my manuscript file to a professional editor here in Melbourne I happen to know.
As it happens, he also charges professional rates, even with a small discount for friends. He’s good, through. I gritted my teeth, sent along the three hundred bucks he quoted, and waited for the result.
He confined himself to things like typos and grammar and fact-checking. All good – and at this point, I cannot stress the importance of getting a fresh set of eyes on your work, regardless of how good you think it is; there will be errors you won’t see – and I accepted most of them but he didn’t give me the sort of structural editing direction I craved.
Writers tend to be a fragile bunch and I was no exception. I wanted confirmation that I’d chosen a good way of telling the story and it flowed along.
It did to me – apart from my weak ending – but again, I had my nose too close to the words to really see if it was any good. In a year or so I could be more objective.
But my editor had nothing to say on that score.
The delay was enough for me to think up a slightly better ending. I tacked that on and submitted my revision.
Well, blow me down!
My story was accepted, along with some kind words.
I travelled up to Canberra for the launch at the annual speculative fiction fair – highly recommended, by the way. Lots of experienced writers talking about their work, how to get published, great opportunities for networking – and got my hands on a copy of the published book.
Brilliant, all round.
I wrote a review at the time, well worth a read, and settled back happily, waiting for a year to pass, after which I’d get my rights back.
That time has come and I’ve republished my cheeky little story on Medium and Substack.
It’s a bit of fun about an imaginary piece of tech that intercepts neural impulses, processes them, and sends them back into the spinal cord where they translate into body motions or enhanced sensations. Or both.
What could possibly go wrong?
Have a read. Let me know what you think!
Britni
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