Looking back at 2011, looking forward at 2012

Wow it's been quite a year.  I've been dorking out all week, reading those 'best of 2011' lists, or '2011 in pictures,' and thinking to myself, wait a sec...that happened this year? Then I realize how much really has happened and I'm just amazed.

Looking back at my own 2011, I'm pretty happy.  The past two years were pretty tumultuous for me so to have a year like this one has been...well...just so nice. 

Looking back at 2011:

The good:

My first publication: Autumn in the Shenandoah
My second publication: Flowers for Clockwork Street
An interview at Flash Fiction chronicles
A Pushcart Prize nomination
Finished a rough draft of my first novel length work

The bad:

The bad isn't really so bad, rather stuff that I really didn't do or accomplish.  And I feel bad about it.

Reading:  I barely read at all this year.  It's pretty embarassing.  Next year, starting tomorrow, I'm going to make an effort to try to read 50 books in 2012

This blog:  It was lacking in posts this year, mainly due to the fact that I wasn't reading.  Okay and I moved halfway across the country and started a new job.  Still, there could have been more updates.

I'm not much of one for New Years Resolution, being the kind of person who believes that you should always be trying to better yourself, but this year I'm setting a reading goal and making a reading list which I'll post here tomorrow.

Look out 2012, I'm going to read the heck out of you!

One reason I love Fantasy

"It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine."  ~ J.R.R Tolkien in On Fairy Stories

 

Of Flash and Shorts

It was finals week last week for my classes.  Finals week is a double edged sword for me:  on one hand I end up with a mountain of grading, on the other I have plenty of time to think as I walk around the classroom and pretend to pay attention to make sure the students don't cheat. 

Don't worry, we professors and instructors have other ways of making sure cheating doesn't happen.  Secret ways.  We're kind of like ninjas that way.

Anyways, as I made my rounds, I was really thinking about my new short story I'm working on.  As of now I"m pleased with it and the direction its taking.  Of course there are parts I'm frustrated with--right now there is a transition that's annoying me so much I wish I could set it on fire--but I like the idea and couldn't help comparing it with the past two works I've written, both flash pieces.

It's amazing how different a few thousand words can make to the experience of a story.  Writing a longer short story made me realize how much flash is a concentrated story, its this sudden strong sweet bitter burst of story. It's this quick flash of emotion so strong it can knock you on your back. It's like lightning.  It's pure, raw, story.

A short story is a slower dance, a longer romance, a different complex twining of threads.  It builds and like a fine aged wine gains richness from each layer you add to it.

I had forgotten that difference at first and wondered, with my short, if it would get boring.  But then I remembered both kinds of stories require different mindsets, different approaches, and one isn't necessarily better than the other, they are simply different.  I can't get frustrated by those differences and just write the story as needs to be written.

In other words, while you can compare flash and short stories, both on content and quality, it's important to realize that the experience you get from the two will be different just by the essential nature of what they are.

A Nomination!

I found out this morning that the good people over at Every Day Fiction have nominated 'Flowers for Clockwork Street,"  for a Pushcart Prize!!

Wow I am super stoked and couldn't be more excited and honored. They nominated it along with several other excellent EDF stories including two of my favs: Shades, and A Widow's Tale.  

I'm in great company :D