Pure Fiction
I had short stories published two Mondays in a row
My 40 day practice, submitting a story to a lit mag every day during Lent, has come to a close. In 40 days, I did only 22 submissions, because somewhere around that three week mark, I realized that most of the stories were not quite ready for submission. So I switched gears from submissions to revisions. During this 40 day span, I finalized a proof of “Breeders” to go to print in Room Magazine (June 2025), and had a flash piece, “Delayed Gratification,” published online with Right Hand Pointing. Of those 22 submissions, I have 7 already rejected, 14 outstanding, and ONE that was accepted last week and published TODAY! Deep gratitude to Feign, a very cool online lit mag out of Reno, for picking up what I was throwing down. The piece, “Ethics of Care,” has gone through almost six years of revisions, from the first draft in July 2019, to the final edits I sent last week. It’s my story with the most submissions, at 18, and the most rejections, at 14 before acceptance (I withdrew 3 simultaneous submissions). These stats are to affirm, everything they say is true. It’s just a matter of getting lucky with an editor who loves what you’re doing. This is why we submit widely, and don’t take rejections personally.
“Ethics of Care” takes place at a massage school in Albuquerque1. Eleven years ago, I did go to massage school in Albuquerque, which obviously inspired the setting and some of the philosophies espoused, but I want to be extremely clear that the characters and scenarios are purely fictional. In fact, I literally dreamt this story, woke up one morning with a scene illustrating the central characters and plot elements. In the summer of 2019, I was 36 and unemployed for the first time since I started working at 17. I spent those months testing whether writing fiction was something I wanted to pursue. It was. A year later, in the depths of working customer service during pandemic lockdown, I decided to apply to MFA programs, and a year after that, we were moving from Vancouver BC to Spokane.
I just did the three day Mini 1000. I’ve been doing 1000 Words of Summer for the last three years, and I use it, as I just used the Mini, to write the most self-indulgent, sappy, sloppy, sexy garbage I can. Get it out of the system, so it only shows up in my legitimate fiction in a more refined form. I highly recommend this. If we don’t write out our self-indulgent shit, we risk forgetting why we are writing.
One of my most beloved stories (“fighting boyfriends” is not the title, but is how I refer to it), which has really gone through the wringer on revisions, is approaching its final form. Kaden read the most recent draft while I was out of town. We talked about it yesterday, 4/20, shortly after ingesting my new favorite cannabis product2 (the footnote is my review/experience, don’t read if you hate weed). Something is still missing from this story in terms of attraction between the characters. Attraction is the most difficult thing to write. I tried to do an inventory of how attraction works, this morning. If anyone has good resources for this problem in fiction, or good examples in literature, pass them along.
What you think you can offer the other person
What you think the other person can offer you
Seeing beauty in the other person (visual)
Sexual desire, what you think will happen if you swap spit or touch intimately
What you share in common
Imagining a future together
Shadowy Mysteries
Isn’t it usually some kind of savior thing? You think you can save them, or they can save you
You can become attracted to a person who approaches you first, out of relief at being seen
I recently found a photo of a journal page I wrote in 2016, full of questions I had about writing fiction. This would be referring to my story “Give Me the Keys,” (second most submissions/rejections, but also 6000+ words), which I began writing in February 2016. It’s the first story that moved beyond the realm of self-indulgent shit, and became its own narrative. A couple years later, in Vancouver, I was pushing on what happens next, what happens next, not allowing myself to stare into space and consider it, but keep writing. It didn’t have an ending until September 2022.
I put the questions I think continue to be most compelling in bold, although they are all questions worth asking when writing fiction.
How do people talk?
How do they get to know one another?
How do they fall into each another?
What kinds of things happen to people?
What details are important?
How do you describe attributes or clothing in ways that convey gesture?
What is a real life conflict that is worthy of further exploration?
How can flower essence case studies contribute to character descriptions?
How does change feel while it’s happening?
Can atmospheres in regions of North America be understood implicitly?
How do you write an experience of substance use responsibly?
What are the differences between characters with stable families of origin and unstable families of origin?
How do class differences act upon queer relationships?
What ethics do queer people operate with in relationships?
Is it feasible for characters to be happy?
In a wild coincidence, I was cat sitting for my friend from massage school, who lives nearby in Turners Falls, when I received the acceptance!
Kanha watermelon gummies, available in California, Massachusetts, Nevada, Illinois, and Thailand. An appealing marshmallow texture, with only the most vague, generic melon flavor. Hybrid, they purport to “put you somewhere in the middle of uplifted and relaxed,” and I found that a fair assessment. We were high af at a coffee shop and did not feel like it was fucked up to be in public. I would never do that on other edibles. I was able to make quick, satisfying connections in my mind. On 5mg, I was stoned for like 6+ hours. The last hour and a half I spent deleting 5000+ emails from my “promotions” folder and unsubscribing from a million email lists, so, it can be like that. No hangover.