Retrospective

This month marks my one year anniversary blogging at Writers Who Kill. If you had told me I would be celebrating this milestone a year and a half ago, I would not have believed you.

In June 2012, after having heard for a number of years about Sisters in Crime and its Guppy Chapter, I dove into the waters, and now, like the salmon, I sense I've reached the stream I was intended to navigate.

As I told this readership last October, reading and writing always have been parts of my life. Internally, I knew I wanted to follow a creative writing career path. How to arrive at that path became the challenge.

When I joined the Guppies, for the first time, I began receiving numerous messages about opportunities to write short stories. Although I had read many short stories, I did not feel comfortable writing them. To be able to craft a short story that conveyed a character's journey and arrived at a satisfying ending, seemed difficult to me--particularly a short mystery. I read the stories of less than 1,000 words in Women's World with amazement. That condensed storytelling took skill.

However, working on a novel that might never be accepted or never get done kept me on the sidelines of the writing community. I told people I was a writer, but I had no tangible proof. Nothing to hand out or point to and say, "See? I'm published." Several members in my local writers' group quit after going years without that achievement. I didn't want to face a similar fate.

Robert Dugoni

So, I decided I had to get into the game. When I heard people conversing about making submissions, I wanted to contribute my own tales. When people asked me what I wrote, I wanted to say "mystery short stories" and tell them the markets where I submitted.

Two wonderful opportunities helped me start in this direction: (1) writing a short story with bestselling author Robert Dugoni, and (2) having one of my own stories accepted for a charitable anthology. Neither has been published yet, but working with Robert was like having a personalized master class, and the group publishing the charitable anthology has released a trailer with my name among the authors.

I kept watching for story calls and making submissions. I joined the Guppy online short story critique group.

Through Story Success, as the Guppy critique group is called, I met Gloria Alden, Kara Cerise, E.B. Davis, and Jim Jackson. I was honored when E.B. asked if I would consider blogging for WWK, and delighted that the group let me share the load with Carla Damron and Sam Morton, two stalwart members of my local writers' group, the Inkplots.

In late December 2012, I read that the Bethlehem Writers Group Roundtable was looking for February stories on the theme "Dead Valentine." The submission had to be made at least a month in advance. I quickly polished a story I had written a few years earlier and sent it in. By the first week in January, I received word it would be the Roundtable February featured story.

Since that time, I've had a second story published in the BWG Roundtable and two in Kings River Life. (Not to mention a Christmas story here on WWK last year.) In addition, I've had two stories accepted for publication in anthologies by Buddhapuss Ink and Dark Oak Press/Kerlak Publishing.

During the summer, my blogging partners have supported and encouraged my work on a short story series. From that experience, I've had the opportunity to meet and now count as good friends some excellent practitioners of mystery short fiction. I've thoroughly enjoyed exploring the avenues open to short story writers. Working in the short story field can help authors gain recognition while maintaining autonomy. I agree with those saying that noted short story writer Alice Munro being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature this year signals a reemergence of the short story form.

As I start out my second year with WWK, I'm busy working on a short story for this Christmas and thinking about other aspects of short story writing to investigate. This February, with WWK blogger Jim Jackson and wonderful short story writers Kaye George, Toni Kelner, and Earl Staggs, I'll be participating as an author in Murder in the Magic City, a conference in Birmingham, Alabama. I've moderated panels before, but this will be the first time I've appeared as an author.

What an amazing year. I credit blogging with WWK as helping me to chart my writing course. Each person contributing to this blog is talented, thoughtful, caring, and wonderful to communicate with. They are both buddies and inspirations, and I wish them all the best in all their pursuits.

Thank you to my blogging partners for your peer review, support, and encouragement. Thank you to all our readers for taking the time to stop by.

I'm truly grateful.