A Peek Behind the Story Curtain

April was a busy month in the SFF writing community. I wrapped up my ballots for the Nebulas and the Locus awards, played a rather fantastic game of Submission Tetris, sold some stories, published some stories, wrote some new stories, and am now revealing an embarrassing authorly secret at the end of this newsletter. Let’s dive in!

Story Sale!

I have some very exciting news to share: Last month I sold a brand new sci-fi flash piece to none other than Nature Futures! Yes, that’s Nature, as in the journal Nature, as in their website, as in my story will be published with Futures oh my goodness! Futures has long been a dream market of mine. I love the stories they publish, and I’ve always wanted to be featured alongside them.

I am therefore ecstatic to announce the future publication of my story “Ms. Anaria’s Classroom Rules for W̶e̶l̶l̶-̶B̶e̶h̶a̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶K̶i̶n̶d̶e̶r̶g̶a̶r̶t̶n̶e̶r̶s̶ When Alien Ambassadors Dock with the Wrong Ship” (I can’t believe I’m getting a title this long and with special formatting published. I love it.)

This story began as an entry in a Codex flash fiction contest and sold rather quickly for my personal records, accruing only two rejections before getting snapped up by Nature Futures in an email I had to read multiple times before I could believe it. I cannot wait to introduce everyone to Ms. Anaria, full-time kindergarten teacher / part-time intergalactic political activist.

Out Now!

April also saw the release of two of Shacklebound’s anthologies: Programmed Hearts and Wyrms 2, each containing drabbles of mine:

“By Any Other Name” is about PostBot, the robot that has fallen in love with the human it serves.

“The Freedom That is Dragon” is about the origin of dragons. It’s not what you think.

And “She Chose the Dragon” tells the reason why one woman would rather live with dragons than with humans.

Writers: They’re Just Like Us

Finally, as promised, my embarrassing secret in the form of a peek behind the curtain of “The Freedom That is Dragon.”

(This contains no spoilers for the story, so if you haven’t read it yet, fear not (but also please read it!).)

It is no great secret among those who know me that I hate titling my stories. It’s the last thing I do, and honestly I only do it because the title is a required field on submission forms. I’d rather write an entire novel than one measly title. While I’m working on a story, I usually have a simple code name for it, an element pulled from the story that I can refer to, to talk about the story without needing a title. Themes, specific symbols, character names, etc.

Anyway, those code names remain on the document while I write and don’t get replaced with a real title until I am ready to send the story into the submission wilds. (You can probably see where this is going.) In the case of “The Freedom That is Dragon” I…forgot to change the title. “The Freedom That is Dragon” is my placeholder title. It’s the format I wanted for the final title (The Something That is Something) but not the final wording. I’d just plugged in the themes and elements of my story while I was working on it. Freedom. Dragons. Cool stuff, but not title material. I mean, come on, you were wondering about that title, right? The Freedom That is Dragon? What does that even mean?

So, I forgot, I submitted, and I didn’t realize I had submitted the placeholder title until the placeholder titled story got accepted!

Now, Catherine, you’d say, this is the time to let the editor know that the title is a placeholder and needs to be changed. Dear reader…I did not. Why? Well, I was a little excited upon the acceptance that I filled in the contract with the placeholder title without thinking and…I still didn’t have a title. I never came up with one! And I couldn’t just title it on the fly. I don’t have that level of titling skill. It had been quite some time since I first wrote the story. I was no longer in that same headspace, had other projects that required my attention, and okay fine, my hatred of all things titling took over and I just…backed away from the placeholder title, letting it sit there for months undisturbed until it became the title.

Bless Eric Fomley, the editor of the anthology, he never said anything and seemed a-okay with the title from the start. And further blessings because I have absolutely no doubt that if I had gathered my writerly wits and courage and asked to replace the title, he would have allowed me to do so without a problem. Unfortunately for all of us, I apparently exerted all of my creative efforts into the story itself and left none for the logistics of publishing the piece.

(I still blush every time I see the table of contents for Wyrms 2.)

Writing is a fun, chaotic, and messy process from start to finish. Some things slip through the cracks. In this case, it was an entire title. So please, grab a copy of Wyrms 2 and witness an immortalized behind the scenes look at my writing process with my placeholder title “The Freedom That is Dragon.”

I’m off to hide under a rock in embarrassment now. See you in June.

Keep on writing on.

—Catherine