Flash Fiction Chronicles

__________________________

Trisha Bhattacharya lives in Kolkata.  She has published short stories and poems in The Times of India and Fashion and Beyond. Her website link iswww.trishabhattacharya.wordpress.com.

Wishing everyone who reads and writes for Flash Fiction Chronicles a very happy holiday!  May the New Year bring you what you’ve been working toward!

–Gay Degani

Want to pick up a book for your favorite writer?  Try one of these:

Story by Robert McKee:

“I won’t kid you. Robert McKee’s Story is a difficult read. Over 400 pages of dense, technical prose spread out in 19 chapters, an introduction and an epilogue. It’s also one of the best books on the craft of writing that’s ever been writing. It’s worth working your way through 20 or 30 pages a day for the lessons McKee teaches.”  Read Angie Dixon‘s complete review at Suite 101.com.

Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver:

“From “write what you know” to “write what you can imagine.” This book has got it all. Story craft, creative process, time management, and getting into print. Jerry Cleaver strings together his advice and workshops to cover all topics that concern not only starting writers but all writers.” Read Erica Jobman‘s complete review at Helium.com.

Ron Carlson Writes A Story by Ron Carlson:

“This short book follows ‘The Governor’s Ball’ as Carlson writes it during one day. He conveys the hanging-in-there experience of writing for him. He does this almost line by line, kind of like this: I wrote A and then thought X and wrote B, which surprised me and I wrote Z; I wanted to take a break and celebrate but was at a dangerous point—didn’t know what was next—so I stayed there and this new character appeared and said . . . Obviously he isn’t a writer who plots his short stories or even who knows where he’s going. But his process of drawing from life and experience and intuition seems to result in discovery—he’s not bored, but interested—when he’s not mildly apprehensive (or scared shitless) that he’s going to hit a dead end or quit. He hangs in.” Read complete review by Richard Gilbert at his Narrative blog.

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, edited by Tara L. Masih

“For a writer who’s never written flash, but who has thought it might be something he’d like to try (e.g., a poet who is thinking of making a leap to writing fiction) this is a must read. Someone who has given considerable thought to flash, its shaping, and its relationship to poetry, will also find this book of interest. ” Read Miriam N. Kotzin‘s complete review at Per Contra.

Or one of the usual suspects:

• On Writing by  Stephen King
• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
• One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
• Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See
• If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland
• Writing Fiction by Jane Burroway
• The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

The only things that distract me from REAL LIFE during the holidays are writing prompts. They call out to me when I should be wrapping gifts.  Wait, I have no gifts to wrap!  Not yet because writing prompts  shout my name the minute I reach for car keys and visa card.  Because of 50-word lures, my tree’s as naked as its noble mother in the forest.  Christmas cards remain sealed in boxes sinceI just have to knock off one more 175-word prompt.  It’ll take me fifteen minutes!!!  Right!

You want prompts. You get prompts.  They’re all over the net.  Just Google “writing prompts” and you get 1,980,000 results in 0.15 seconds and you don’t even have to spell it right.

Writing prompts come as  statements: “Write about a holiday memory.”

Writing prompts show up as quotations:  ”The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.”   –Aristotle.

Or how about a string of plain old words? Try:  ”BUSHWHACK-POLKA-KNEAD-URBANE-DIRT BIKE.”  You can find a10 words daily here at Flash Fiction Chronicle and on FFC’s FaceBook page.

And then there are always photographs like the one below.  Go!

What I like about writing prompts is they do something crazy-wild to my brain.  They give me permission to not think too much about how good it will be.

Yep.

Writing can get all serious at times.  You know those niggles all writers have, wondering if we’re any good, worried no one will ever publish us again?  But writing prompts?  Who can worry about those?  And during the holidays, the ones that limit word count: 300 words, 150 words, 100, 50, 30, 25, even 140 characters,  are the most tempting.  I always think I’m going to just whip them off.  Hah!  Some are “whipped,” but some, some require extra time to get them just right.   What I like most, however, is seeing what the challenge will bring out of my subconscious.

If I respond to a prompt with a specific word count, it is amazing to me how close to or just over I am to that number of words.  This hasn’t always been true.  I’m a notorious over-writer when there’s no limit.  But with practice, my brain has learned to assess the parameters:  where I am in a fledgling piece of writing, and whispers to me what I need to hear.  ”Something better happen soon.  You’re 20 words in, or 50  or 100″ and “Who is this character?” and “There’s gotta be a want, there’s gotta be something standing in her way!”  Then,  ”dig deep and make that character do something…or not…and let her suffer the consequences!”

So I’ve learned my subconscious has everything to do with it.  The right brain is forced to work with the left brain because the word count applies good old-fashioned pressure.  Usually I keep these two ornery brain-folk apart.  The left brain tries to batter the right brain into submission and follow the “rules,” but the right brain hangs in there  sparring and between the two of them, I come up with something workable.  The creator and the editor join forces to meet a word prompt of a certain length.  Of course, there’s the “Nanny-nanny-told you so’s” from old Leftie about the rough draft is finished, but he gets an extra turn to edit.

When there’s no prompt and no word limit, I tend to write longer stories. My process is to write moment to moment detail and when I realize I’ve got room to develop something longer, my stories become tomes.   I  have to do more  cutting when something has no limit.  It’s almost as if my subconscious says, “Go ahead.  Knock yourself out. ”  And I do, but the discipline I’ve learned by writing spontaneous stories with word counts is to train my brain to nudge me.  ”Where you going with this?  You gotta plan?  Get those characters arguing.  Write something outrageous.  Let GO.”

Sometimes when my longer stuff feels turgid, I  find a prompt and–Holy Synchronicity!–it opens me up! Focuses me.  The short piece working into the long one.

Here’s a list of places I found on Google:

FlashFiction.Net’s Flash Prompt Fridays

Creative Writing Prompts

Writers’ Digest Writing Prompts

Story Starters

Cure Writer’s Block

Now I gotta go to the store and buy some eggnog.

____________________________________

Gay Degani’s stories can be read online at Metazen, LITnIMAGE, Night Train, 10 Flash, Emprise Review among others. Nominated for a Pushcart, she edits EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles, blogs at Words in Place, and works as a staff editor at SmokeLong Quarterly.

Writing!  The blank screen is a white shroud caressing my face in the morgue.  And then, slowly the words drip feed down the page, accelerating until they become plasma filling my flaccid veins with life.

How much simpler to say the blank page terrifies me, but would it be as memorable?  Crime writer Donald L. Westlake told Ken Follett to skim the first pages of the bestsellers and try to find five out of a hundred that were memorable.  Why?  If writing is memorable a reader will return to your work.

That made me think of rhetorical imagery that readers comment on in my stories.

“Giersbach,” people say, “where’d you get that image?  ‘Her breasts were like two supermarket chickens reincarnated into flying eagles, threatening to escape her skimpy red tank top.’”  While my plot, character, style and atmosphere are just so-so, they remember my metaphors and similes.

In “Laura Lard Takes No Prisoners,” my protagonist has a penchant for heavy-set women.*  The narrative hook is a set-up of four metaphors and similes comparing a city and personal obesity.

New York City is a lean town. Not mean, just full of thin-to-middle-weight people who walk fast, talk faster and move through pedestrian-clotted streets the way a Giants’ running back weaves toward the goal line …  Combine the driving impulses of acquisition and apprehension and you leave no room for calories to collect and twiddle their thumbs on your thighs.  There’s no place for slow-moving vehicles in the fast lane of commerce.

Allen and Laura are a metaphor.  “As they walked away, it was as if the Trylon and Perisphere had come to life and were marching toward Second Avenue.” Imagery from the 1939 World’s Fair is the trick to never forgetting the “skinny” and “overweight” couple.

Metaphor, as your 5^th grade teacher told you, is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase ordinarily used to designate something stands in for something else.  In the case above, Laura fought her childhood tormentors by “doing an Elliott Ness against the Prejudice Mafia.”

Simile, kissing cousin to metaphor, is a figure of speech comparing two essentially different things.  At Allen and Laura’s party on New York’s Lower East Side, a guest states the obvious about Laura’s unnecessary avoirdupois:  “‘Yeah, but she’s fat’ sounded like the PA system in Grand Central Terminal announcing the all-aboard for the apocalypse.”  The key word in a simile is like or as.

Without getting too carried away, a good writer also can look for ways to use synecdoche—using a part to refer to the whole, such as “wheels” for autos and “head” for cattle.  And (gasp), there’s also metonymy— identifying a person with a thing, such as “crown” for royalty and “brass” for military officers.

Well, let’s get carried away a bit more.  Consider chiasmus (Greek, crossing arrangement; X = chi).  Here, you want to reverse the order of words in two parallel phrases.  “She came in like a lioness in heat and, in defeat, left like a pregnant lamb.”

Finally, there’s zeugma, a way of imaginatively yoking together different thoughts—each appropriate, but in a different way.  “On Hemingway’s visit to Havana, he caught two sailfish and the clap.”

Now, you give it a shot, being mindful that it’s easy to go over the top using rhetorical imagery.  This simile was culled from favorites collected by teachers.  “The hailstones leaped from the pavement, like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.”  Or an unfortunately mixed metaphor from Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities: “All at once he was alone in this noisy hive with no place to roost.” And watch out for clichéd analogies that will sink your boat:  “Even though the job paid peanuts, Joe was pleased as punch because he had gone through hell and back, keeping a firm grip on reality the whole time, and was finally seeing his dream come to life.”

Try creative imagery and watch your writing soar faster than a Macy’s Thanksgiving balloon escaping its kidnappers.

* “Laura Lard Takes No Prisoners,” from Cruising the Green of Second Avenue by Walter Giersbach, Wild Child Publishing (www.wildchildpublishing.com).

______________________________________________

Walt Giersbach has published a number of crime stories, introducing Newark Detective Mike Mullally in “The Bone Yard” (http://www.bigpulp.com/chill_giersbach_boneyard.html) and “Chain of Events” (http://www.overmydeadbody.com/giersbch.htm).  He’s putting Mullally into a novella now.

This article is the second part, please read the first part here.

Let’s talk money for a moment:

Pro rates, last time I checked are about 5-10 cents a word, and often cap at some arbitrary amount, like $30, $50 or $100. Golden age pulp fiction writers often got anywhere from 1/2 a cent to 5 cents. In other words, the pro-rate for short fiction has not significantly changed in 70 years. I know a lot of authors, and among them, the only ones that are consistently making money are the ones who write speculative erotica. Most of this money comes from ebook royalties. So if money is something that drives Ned’s writing, I suggest he heartily pursue erotic fiction. There is plenty of room for creativity, and an insatiable demand for good writing. Some of the most prolific and talented authors I know do just this and love every minute of it.

In general, ‘zines don’t pay much, if anything. They are created as an act of love. When Ned is looking for somewhere to submit his early fiction, I suggest he not worry too much about money in the beginning. *** There are plenty of fine pro-markets, and if being published in a pro-market is what is driving Ned’s creative process than by all means, he ought to submit there first. This post is about the little guy, no matter how large he might actually be.
The other side of the coin is that there are a lot of bad for-the-love-of markets. These markets are unquestionably awful. You’ll know them when you see them. They’re often hosted on free websites with minimal modifications from the defaults. Fuzzy or bizarre guidelines are another red flag. Ned might want to go through the archives and check the quality and content of previous stories. Multiple typos suggest bad editing, and inattentiveness to detail. Is there long, unexplained gaps in the publication history? Has the editor taken the time to get an ISSN#, produce a masthead, or write a short mission statement? If these things are shoddy or non-existent than it suggests a lack of dedication. Ned should probably shy away from anything that isn’t built to last. It’s too easy, in a fevered pitch, to set up a site and solicit manuscripts then lose interest, or find you do not the necessary time.

If the fiction is good, well written and edited, then it’s possible Ned might want to submit anyway, one danger is on these flash-in-the-pan sites is that once your story goes up, it might not be possible to get taken down. Another thing Ned should look out for are sites that publish pretty much anything thrown at them. There are fewer of these than you’d think. Obviously quality is suspect in this situation, you are known by the company you keep, they say.

I read that recently Every Day Fiction made the top 50 online markets list as reckoned by Writers Digest. With virtually infinite competition what makes EDF stand out? What have they done right to be placed on that list?

Well, Ned, let me tell you what I think:

• EDF strives for excellence. Consistently high quality is the core of any successful publication venture.

• Stories are all under 1000 words. This is significant to online readers. When fiction is read on a computer, authors must compete with email, IM popups, bells, eyestrain, Facebook, their iTunes play list finishing, etc. Short is better for this media.

• New daily content with no excuses. Like the previous point, people interacting with the Internet have virtually no attention span. (I know Ned is special, he can read 100k online and love every word.) It is nearly mandatory to offer readers something new, and do it often. Unlike print media the Internet is well designed to communicate streams of information. This is clearly a core concept to EDF since it’s built right into their name.

• EDF leverages modern Web 2.0 features for both authors and readers. Their submission system, for example, makes it easy for both authors and editors to manage submissions. And while I have no inside knowledge of their process, I am a professional computer and networking type by trade, and I see some things that suggest they are Doing it Right. Stuff like OpenID logins, mobile device views, onsite forums, user contributed audio fiction, and the highly groovy EDF Chronicles show they are using established technology and methods, while still looking ahead. These things connect authors, editors and readers in various way, which is what Web 2.0 is really about.

• From an author’s perspective EDF is a great market. Their response times are reasonable, and they pay their authors (via Paypal with an option to donate back to EDF). The slush readers/editors takes the time to make a few quality comments whether Ned’s story is rejected or accepted, and do so on or before the stated response time. In addition, they have a high demand for stories due to their daily publication schedule, they take nearly all genres and have an upfront contract (Rest assured Ned, I am not some EDF shill, I’m only a lowly contributor. I’ve got little skin the game, so to speak.)

Now sadly, despite Ned’s strong belief EDF should run every single thing he writes sadly this is not likely to be the case. Ned may get rejected for any number of reasons, so it is important for Ned to not take it to heart and pick a second choice market. Armed with a bit of knowledge of what to look for, and where to look, Ned can easily move on to the next market with confidence. Good luck to you, sir, but even more importantly, have some fun sharing your creative vision with the world.

______________________________________

Bosley Gravel runs his own little piece of ‘zine, the fledgling Cavalcade of Terror, where he tries to follow his own advice.  He welcomes your submissions.  In addition to editing, Bosley Gravel has written and published two novels, dozens of short stories, and  a handful of novellas. Check out www.ripcot.com for his bibliography of creative works.

Aside from writing, a real writer must find somewhere to publish. Yes, I know all about your cousin Ned who only writes for the sheer pleasure of it and has a trunk full of masterpieces that he’ll never ever share with the world. To him, I say, “You’re a chicken-butt, Ned.” I’m pretty sure he’d love to get his fiction in front of an audience, but is either afraid of criticism, or more unforgivably, too lazy. J.D. Salinger and your cousin Ned have something in common, I think.

The past ten years has brought us the most complex communication media ever to exist on the planet earth. I speak of the mostly functional Internet. Marshall McLuhan once famously said “the medium is the message.”  By this, as I understand, he meant that the perception of the message is influenced by the method by which it is delivered. Taking a good look at all the options your cousin Ned has, I begin to wonder if perhaps Ned is neither afraid nor lazy, but perhaps overwhelmed at the sheer vastness of the Internet and e-publishing. Perhaps he is a bit worried about confusing the media and the message. Don’t worry, Ned. I’m here to help.

Epoch

In the beginning (1970~1990) … there was no *Internet.  Instead people dialed into what was called a BBS (Bulletin Board System) which was basically a modem connected to a computer in some guy’s (and a few gals’) cellars or garages. These were typically text mode with primitive menu-driven interfaces. BBS worked more like a drop box: only the high end systems allowing multiple online users.

Often text files detailing methods of becoming a more effective juvenile delinquent were available, as well as a brisk trade in ASCII art boobs. But, from time to time, honest to goodness creative writing would appear, a good bit of it wedged into technical ‘zines (a close tie with the ASCII art boobs in popularity). In addition to trading text files, some boards had primitive social networking features such as messaging, forums, and chats. Bulletin board system died out for all but nostalgic reasons in the mid-90s when the packet switched networks became popular. This is not the market Ned is looking for, in fact not much of market at all. BBS are likely the great granddaddy of Web 2.0, but existed as a kind of primordial stew. The folks stirring this stew have gone on to control every nearly every aspect of modern communication. Scary, isn’t it?

* For various values of Internet. I’ve simplified a bit for Ned’s sake.

The Middle Ages

In the early to mid-90s computers became affordable (kind of), and useful (sort of), and suddenly anybody with a printer and desktop publishing software could make their own ‘zine with only a minor monetary investment. This allowed folks who were less technically inclined to create a publication. These markets paid nothing, in contributor copies, or on occasion, small amounts of money. These early attempts were often run by students, retired English teachers, wing-nuts with an agenda, and a whole lot of aspiring editors who were certain they’d take the world by storm with their dot-matrix printers and pirated copies of Illustrator Pro.

This era, in my humble opinion, was really the beginning of **New Publishing. A great deal of these ‘zines were awful, a few were good. Most survived at a financial loss, and only existed due to the editor’s love of putting something creative together. Likely more than a few were only read by and received by contributors. For a dollar or two, an enthusiastic young writer could send away for sample copy and have a look. In those barbaric, inelegant days, Ned would have had to print his manuscript on real dead tree paper, and by the gods, he better have one inch margins on all sides, and double space, because, I’m certain, based on the tone of guidelines, these editors had special rulers to check these things down to the fraction of an inch. Woe to Ned if he used any font other than Courier, or any point rather than twelve. Serious business. These markets may still exist,  but Ned need not worry too much about them since they were very quickly replaced by …

** By New Publishing I mean Smashwords, PoD, Lulu, Createspace, blogging, electronic document exchange, so on and so on.

The Renaissance

In the late 90s, the web really took off in a commercial sense. It wasn’t a bunch of olfactory challenging bearded college guys playing with a DARPA experiment gone wild. Nope, there was gold in them there hills. This era brought us things like Geocites, LiveJournal (which in most ways was a new-generation BBS), web space with your dot edu address, among other visual and technical atrocities. The ‘zine moved from dot-matrix printers and floppy disk to html and http servers. The ‘zines officially morphed to e-zines. Despite the obvious direction things were taking, and despite the scramble to make money of this new fangled web thing, the professional magazines were slow to create online editions.

This created a void that was soon filled with lots and lots of web-only markets. The new ‘zines paid very little, if anything, but in truth, many professional magazines didn’t pay much either and the pros were already in decline. Instead of jumping on the train to the Tomorrowland, big publishing fought against change or ignored the fact that the industry was changing. At least up until the past couple of years.  Too bad for them. The good news is there now exists a large surface for Ned to pin his brilliant fiction on instead of leaving it in the trunk.

Web 2.0, Now

The present state of the ‘zine is looking pretty good for new authors. There are tons of markets dedicated to every possible genre (and even some impossible ones). If Ned is serious about getting published, the first thing he’d want to do is to have a look at Duotrope, a search engine for fiction markets. Dutrope does include some high end markets, but there just aren’t too many these days.

Stay tuned for the second half of  “How Ned Learned to Stop Worrying and Love E-Publishing” in which I will explain to Ned what to look for in a modern electronic publication.

______________________________________

Note: These are mine. They may not be yours. It’s what I’m using or about to use now. Doesn’t mean they’re right; they’re right for me, perfect at this time and place in my writing.

Writing Mechanics

Rule No.1: Always write in your own voice. Never mimic another writer, even if you’re using one of their tools or writing ideas.

-Begin each and every single story, novel, story-break and chapter with a dynamite HOOK. The narrative HOOK must do what its name implies: it must HOOK the reader; it must hook into the reader’s eyeballs or heart, pulling heartstrings and interest. It must force the reader to continue reading despite being late for work. If an editor picks up my story, his eyeballs need to be riveted, his interest and heart needs to be HOOKED. He might continue reading and discover that I’m a terrible writer, but at least I’ve intrigued him.

-Get to the action ASAP. It doesn’t have to be the main, pivotal plot of the story; it can be conflict between characters, internal conflicts of a psychological nature such as someone’s fear of water.

-Top every paragraph with a topic sentence. The topic sentence should explain what happens in the paragraph. Don’t make the reader guess. Everything beneath the opening topic sentence should HANG from the topic sentence. Don’t describe a room first; have your character look around the room or enter the room. This adds clarity of thought, purpose and action of the paragraph. It’s grade school, but too many times have I purchased anthologies or novels in which the author doesn’t know how to use topic sentences for the reader’s benefit.

-Shortening sentences for action. Most writers will use an average amount of words for sentences. You can think of the pacing of punctuation as drumbeats. When approaching an intense scene of action, you and begin using shorter, clipped sentences. When you hit the intense action, shorter sentences have a way of speeding up the tempo. For one reason, shorter sentences are easier to read. When the reader begins reading shorter sentences during your scene of “intense action,” the reader will read faster because the sentences are shorter. This manipulates the reader, makes the story move faster, and can facilitate a false sense of intensity. Fiction is comprised of lies but embedded with emotional truth. You’re trying to manipulate the reader into buying into your story, manipulating the reader into believing your characters and the reality of your world.

-Lengthening sentences for slowing it down. Sometimes you need to slow it down when the action has been coming too hard, too fast. At this time you can delve a bit into passive voice like a painter using a bit of extra color, in order to create a feeling, mood or ambiance.

-Camera angle POV. Besides this link, you might want to consider each sentence flowing into the other. Hanging the entire paragraph from your topic sentence cements the action within the reader’s mind, but if your sentences don’t flow from one to the other, then your paragraph fails. Camera Angle POV

-Ray Bradbury’s The Kilimanjaro Device. Don’t be afraid to prolong a sentence even if you’re writing noir or hard-boiled fiction. For example: “He realized they’d come to kill him, as he ran down the street, as he ran with screams in his throat, as his legs sprinted for all they were worth worth.” Bradbury has a way of taking an action and prolonging it, adding detail as he goes.

-Tom Piccirilli’s Shadow Season. Going back to getting to the action ASAP, Tom’s main strength is his mastery of intertwining and threading conflict through every paragraph. His character wants to do something, but has doubts; wants to protect, yet at the same time desires to beat the person up; feels powerless as a blind man, yet sometimes feels as though all the world is at his beck and call. These are contrasts, conflicting contrasts, and they have the capacity to bring CONFLICT into every square inch of the story.

-Purpose. Learned this at Illinois Central College. Your story should resonate with PURPOSE!!!! Aesop’s Fables, Grimm’s Faerie Tales, Disney—they all had morals. Whether you’re a Goth or Saint, your story needs a moral, a purpose. You’re not just writing to entertain. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath had purpose. Hemingway, Twain, Faulkner—all their work had purpose. You won’t know the TRUE PURPOSE of your story until you’ve been chopping away at it, but when it materializes out of thin air—like inspiration—do your damndest to hone in on that purpose, flesh it out and bring it to life. Make it breathe like one of your characters. SHOW the purpose through action and dialogue; don’t spell it out for the reader.

-Joe Hill’s Twentieth Century Ghost. Jump from past tense to present tense, and use italics for present tense. Or switch it up as Chelsea Cain did in Heart Sick. What she did was zero in on the female serial killer’s slow torture of the main character, a detective. The present tense INTENSIFIED the horrific nature of what happened.

-Cliffhangers for longer works. Dan Brown obviously uses a template for writing. He begins with a narrative hook, fleshes out the character, situation and action. Then he ends the chapter or scene with a cliffhanger. In fact, you will find that he uses cliffhangers constantly, repeatedly throughout his work. When you begin to see past the smoke and mirrors, it’s not quite as compelling a read. You should use the cheap parlor trick yourself.

-Passive voice and gerunds create ambiance and mood. In the hands of an experienced writer they strengthen writing; in the hands of a novice they weaken story. Know when you’re wanting to produce a mood within the reader, and know when you wish to use words do accomplish this over plot and action. Think of Clarkesville and Anne Rice. Usually while describing landmarks, locals or appearances writers will use passive voice: “The valley slides easily into the Illinois River that splits the land. Barges and towboats float lazily, foghorns echoing at all hours of the night, a watery thoroughfare of economic activity belying the inactivity of the sleeping city.” Poor example, probably, but written off the top of my head. Appearances, too: “When she entered the room she stunned the producers. Brown hair flowed over her shoulders, wafting in the breeze of her lithe gait, and her amber eyes held them spellbound. A strange knowing overcame the film crew. Before she read the script, everyone knew she was the one.”

______________________________________

John “JAM” Arthur Miller owns Liquid Imagination Publishing, an ezine combining artwork and music with speculative fiction and poetry to create a new art form. JAM has over 65 publishing credits/acceptances with various publications ranging from anthologies, print publications and ezines. He is on the Board of Trustees at Silver Pen, a non-profit organization created to promote literacy.  JAM has full physical custody of three small children who have tamed his writing and slowed him down somewhat, and that’s just fine with JAM. The importance of optimism combined with the occasional YIPPIE (regardless of rejection) for writers is a frame of mind that, JAM believes, must be attained for optimum performance. “YIPPIE!!!”