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.
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| 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.
