venta

Recently, I was rummaging around my very old LJ posts to examine long-past new year resolutions. Pretty much every year in which I posted resolutions since I started writing here[*], they included something along the lines of writing more fiction, and getting something published.

Many years have involved a lot of not-doing that.

But! As of this week, I have a proper, published story out in the world. It appears in Luna Station Quarterly, which publishes "Stellar Short Fiction by Women-Identified Writers". I've actually been reading LSQ for some time, and I rate their fiction pretty highly. Accordingly, I am absolutely over the moon that they elected to publish a story of mine.

I've always read e-book issues of LSQ up until now. This quarter I've splashed out and got the p-book, which is altogether more professional, glamorous and real-looking than I could possibly have imagined. I am ridiculously over-excited about it.

If you wish for a copy, Amazon or Weightless Books can provide. Or you can read the whole thing online for no money here. Or you can read my story in particular, should you want to. It's fairly gentle sci-fi, and the save-your-stuff-offline app on my phone estimates it to be an 11-minute read.

(Note for the easily confused who know me IRL: I am using a pseudonym. This is because my actual surname is quite ridiculously hard to spell.)

As part of the publication process, the magazine wanted a bio from me, and a photo, and they have sent me some hard questions for an interview (to be published later in the month). I am feeling terribly important about the whole thing. I might almost be able to call myself a writer :-)

[*] OK, "here" is technically Dreamwidth these days. I don't really draw much of a distinction in my head!

Every so often, walking about, I see things which catch my attention. I want to know how they came to be there. I want to know the story behind them.

By which, of course, I mean I want there to be a story behind them. Why was the guy in Reading station clutching a handful of tall red roses (bare stems, no wrapping paper or cellophane) and staring so anxiously at the escalators? Nervous first date? Waiting for a partner after an argument? Would the lady (or gentleman) he waited for be pleased to see him? And where did the roses come from?

This morning, on a garden wall on my walk to the station, there was a bottle of cava. It was Freixenet - not top end, but decent stuff. It was open, and only an inch or so from the top.

What set of circumstances, or curtailed celebration, causes someone to leave a barely-touched bottle of pricey cava in the street?

Fans of flash fiction-writing are invited to explain either circumstance in <100 words :)