Lots happening lately.  

Catherine the Great's Untold Stories!

Out today is Catherine refracted from Pure Slush. Here's the tagline: 

The unofficial unofficial biography! 19 salacious stories that delve deeper into the true life of Catherine the Great ... and where no one has gone before! With Susan Tepper, Andrew Stancek, Sarah Collie, Joyce Juzwik, L. S. Johnson, Todd McKie, Dusty-Anne Rhodes, Christine Tolley, Robert Mangeot, Stephen V. Stephen V Ramey, Gill Hoffs, Anne Scott, Kim Conklin Hutchinson, Claudia Bierschenk, Juliet Beckman Hubbell, Matt Potter, Mira Desai, and me.

From "The Cossack Ultimatum"  by me. 

The steward closed the door firmly behind her. She hurried to her chair, tossed her needlework to the floor, and sat down. “I have a plan.”

Read me on your iPad!

I've just discovered a new site which puts short stories in an app so that they can be read online via all those magic devises like cell phones, iPads, etc.  It's called Ether Books Mobile.  Here's the link: http://writers.etherbooks.com/Default.aspx.  

 I have a piece that is up now called "Heading to Perdition" previously seen at K. C. Ball's 10Flash.  You need to download the app itself to read it via iTunes or Google. 
 You flip the pages like real pages.  I've never seen that before.  Anyway, I'm using it to publish the stories that were printed in mags that no longer publish and there are no archives.   And I'm taking the opportunity to revise them.  So the first one up is Heading to Perdition from 10Flash.  You have to download the app and then go to discover.  Here's the ether site link and info about the story. About "Heading to Perdition."

If you have time, please check it out and give me a review.  Even it you don't care for the story, tell it like it is. 

My FaceBook Digest

I realized today as I was visiting my FaceBook groups that I leave a lot of advice around and decided, hmmm, these could all be turned into craft essays.  But then I thought, good grief, like I don't have enough to do already!  So I maybe when I write a bit I like or feel strongly about, I'll just put it here since I don't really do much with my blog anyway.  I invited anyone who wants to comment to do so! 

At  EDF's Roundtable

Raymond Daley 

How do you deal with a story you don't have an end for? Do you keep it in the hope you'll think of one in the near future or do you abandon it?I've got so much stuff I've started with great ideas that just ran out of steam or eventually turned out not to have legs to stand alone.It's depressing. It's enough to put a writer off writing.
Thoughts? Suggestions?

What I said: 

Set aside, don't abandon, because although not every story ends up being something that you care about, most of them can be "saved."  They are saved when they are set aside for a period of time (an hour, a day, an month) and reread as if written by someone else.  They can be saved by asking specific questions such as what does my character want? what does he fear? what stands in her way? what do I want her to learn?  They can be saved by research.  Google the setting, find key words and look up synonyms. go to wikipedia and check out personality types.  

Go here to find out what others have said:  EDF's Roundtable

AtFlash Fiction Chronicles New and Emerging Writers Group

BonnieZoBell  

I seem to be a kind of binge writer. I can go for long periods of time, days, months, a year, and write every spare second I have. Right now I don’t seem to be writing very much.

What I said:

A friend of mine called me a binge writer and in some ways that's true. Really though I'm at my computer every day for the most part. The thing is I always have several things going at the same time and so my output is somewhat erratic. I've also had a terrible habit of sending things out too soon and I'm trying to curb that impulse. Usually I will be working on all these different things and then I'll get pissed off at one of them because I haven't been able to get it right and I'll say, okay, I don't care if it's shit or not I'm going to finish this sucker today and that's when I make the most progress, But it's never done. Nothing for me is ever done. Every one of my stories for my chapbook has been rewritten to some degree or another. 

Go here to find out what others have said: Flash Fiction Chronicles New and Emerging Writers Group

StoryADay Worth Every Minute

It's taken me almost two weeks to get back around to The StoryADay challenge, but here I am.  As can be seen in my previous post, I managed to keep up--more or less--the first couple weeks, and very pleased that I kept to that commitment.  The second half was tougher for various reasons.  Once I got behind, I struggled to get caught up.  After doing several random prompts, I began to feel stressed about them.  They prompted me to write fast and to get words on paper, but what words?  At some point I began to feel as if any more new "starts" were unnecessary and I needed to go back and start searching for meaning in the ones I had.  

Here's how I finished up:

May 19 Heroine (502)

May 20 Julian Meets Liv (605)

May 21 Wheel of Fortune (704)

May 22 Notes on comfort Zones (760)

May 23 Trap (416)

May 24 Research and rumination on Comfort Zones (500 words)
May 25-28 Worked on Comfort Zones

I'm still working on "Comfort Zones!"  Cannot get it right.  Tried to take bits of it for the Flash Mob 2013 Extravaganza that is going on, but couldn't get it shaped into anything.  Nice descriptions but what did it mean???  So I started the month off terrific but petered out toward the end.  Not disappointed thought because I have two strong stories to work on that I know I can get into shape and there are at least three more that I might be able to do something with.  That's success in my book.  So thank you, Julie Duffy at StoryADay for sponsoring this event and thanks to Sue Ann Connaughton who was my "Accountability" partner.