New Fiction Up – Woman, Monster, Mother

storytime.pngMy story “Woman, Monster, Mother” is up at The Edge of Propiniquity, which is run by Jennifer Brozek. Ms. Brozek is one of those fantastically organized and disciplined people who makes my overwork ethos look like slackerdom. Sure, I might be working online and at my day job and grad school – but the dishes aren’t done, and I farm out a lot of jobs to the Kiddo (who doesn’t mind earning cash for them).

Woman, Monster, Mother almost appeared in another publication that Ms. Brozek edited, but ended up at TEoP instead. This doesn’t bother me one whit. 🙂

This is one of those stories where I think I should have a lot more to say about it than I do… but I don’t. In many ways, it’s a landmark story for me. My median story length tends to jump, then plateau, then jump again. This story marks the jump from 3k to 5k. I’d been watching a whole lot of Castle at the time, so that pacing influenced the story. I also layered in some “easter eggs”, mostly with names.

The other thing with this story marks the first time I really transliterated someone from the real world – my dog Taylor, who was written in just after he died – and the emotions from one traumatic event (his death) were totally scraped up and used to describe some of Angelica’s feelings. That felt a little strange to do, but I think it really makes some things work better.