September 2023 Editing Update

Wow, it’s been a minute. Before we return to our regularly scheduled programming, here is an update on my progress with the mystery novel I’ve been editing. (I wrote this a month ago when I was on vacation and never got around to posting it.)

We’re a week deep in September, and I’m in the woods of Killbear Provincial Park, tapping away on my laptop at a picnic table that last night played host to a very well-fed and curious raccoon. The first half of the week brought an intense and unexpected heatwave that turned my brain to mush and sapped me of any desire to do anything but sway in my hammock with a book. Then, we took an afternoon jaunt into Parry Sound to sit in Starbucks and cool off, and surprise of all surprises, the muse that had abandoned me when summer’s long sunny days arrived returned, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Hey, let’s play.”

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that just before I left for this trip, I finally, finally printed the manuscript of Sneaking Suspicions, my WIP and the first of a series of cozy mystery novels featuring Amber Jenkins, a cake-baking, procrastinating, cardigan-wearing amateur sleuth. Before leaving civilization for a week, I left said manuscript with my first beta reader. Then I drove off in a car packed to capacity to relax and pretend I wasn’t completely terrified.

Fast forward to Starbucks, hours away from home, sipping chocolate cream cold brew instead of enjoying nature. Book 1 edits on hold until I get feedback from beta readers, I decided to crack open my zero draft of Book 2. Murdering Memories, the return of Amber Jenkins, her barely-read blog, skiving off work to stick her nose into a petty series of break-ins at the bicycle shop across the street from her uncle’s bakery. Meanwhile, an old high school friend gets back in touch–to invite Amber to help sell an energy/health drink with spectacularly far-fetched claims. When Amber stumbles across another body, will the secrets she starts to uncover put her and her loved ones in danger she never bargained for?

As I sat in the delicious air-conditioning, reading through a draft I hadn’t opened in nearly two years, I was struck by something I had not been expecting: It was good. It was actually pretty darn good, and I was getting excited about the story again. I started splitting the draft into scenes, making notes in Scrivener of gaps, inconsistencies, and things I wanted to add, change, or eliminate. The draft currently sits at just over 54,000 words (typical of a NaNoWriMo draft that I never quite finished). There are scenes missing that I skipped over while trying to power through to win NaNoWriMo 2021. An entire secondary storyline needs to be filled in and beefed up. The whole thing needs a good proofreading. But it has Potential with a capital P.

So here we are, dear readers. I have an actual manuscript of a novel being read by actual other human beings, and I’m starting edits on the sequel, with a draft of a third novel waiting in the wings. Is this actually happening? Watch this space.

Postscript: Who am I kidding? Next month is November. I’m totally going to be pounding out a sketchy draft of Book 4 before I dig into any more edits.

If I could give less than one star, I would.

I deducted a star for how long it took to get here. I ordered this over twenty years ago, and I’ve been waiting and waiting, and it took absolute ages.

Subtracted another star for an inaccurate description of the product. Advertising led me to believe that I’d be able to do whatever I want whenever I want with it, but most of the time, it’s “working,” and after that, the battery just dies, and I have to recharge it.

I had to take another star off for the cost of this thing. If I had known it was useless without a paid subscription, I probably wouldn’t have bought it. As it is, it’s costing me more money than I make, and I’m slipping deeper and deeper into debt. All the most fun options come with the biggest price tags, and nothing seems to be included for free.

I’m pretty sure this product is made with toxic materials because ever since I got it, I’ve been gradually feeling worse and worse. I’ve got lower back pain, my knees grind and pop, and acid reflux keeps me awake every night. Suddenly I’ve got these little hairs that sprout randomly from my chin no matter how often I pluck them. It all started after this product was delivered, but I contacted the seller for a refund, and they said they don’t accept returns.

It didn’t even come with a manual. The instructions on the package are very vague, and supposedly I should have learned how to use it in school, but none of the lessons I can remember seem to apply to the issues I have to troubleshoot. The settings are stuck on default, and I wish I could customize things more to my liking. And don’t even get me started on the faulty Play button. That broke almost immediately, and now I can’t even remember what it used to do.

I’d give it zero stars if that were an option. Highly do not recommend. It was supposed to be a huge upgrade over Childhood, but take it from me, Adulthood is a dud.

Time and Tide

Gulls screech and scold each other 
As our clan compiles, waiting for the worst 
Barnacles against a rising tide, and 
What do we do when the rock is gone? 
Waves send blows on blows that threaten to dislodge 
Future fears grip strongly at our throat 
Swallow it down, swallow it down 
Drink it, every last drop 
I’ll choke down the ocean, gulp by gulp 
While whitecaps crash and clouds fly high 
There’ll be no surrender from me. 
Creatures that bide in tide pools have no choice 
Adapt or die, cope and change, cling to what? 
Look at the sky, wait for the moon 
When it comes back, we’ll be free? 
The longer the wait, the bigger the clan, 
The less air we all have to breathe 
How can we live in this hole in a rock 
When low tide means waiting for death 
But the high is what threatens our life?

10 More (More) Notable Canadian Literary Magazines

As many of my fellow writers can attest, finding a home for your work can be challenging (read: feels impossible sometimes). Here are 10 Canadian journals I’ve encountered in my hunt for suitable places to submit my stories.

At the time of this blog being posted, some of these publications may not currently be accepting submissions, so do check when their submission windows are open. As always, please read their submission guidelines carefully and familiarize yourself with the type of work they publish before submitting.

Agnes and True

Agnes and True is a Canadian online literary journal that accepts short fiction submissions (500-3,500 words) year-round. They accept submissions from outside Canada, while still emphasizing stories “that exhibit a Canadian sensibility.” What I love about this journal is that they celebrate women and place particular importance on discovering and publishing the work of emerging older writers.

Agnes and True is a paying market: CAD 75.00 per story upon publication.

Arc Poetry

Arc Poetry publishes in print and digitally and accepts general submissions of previously unpublished poetry from April 1 to July 31 and from September 1 to December 31. They also accept pitches for prose essays and interviews as well as for a 500-word column, “How Poems Work.”

Arc Poetry pays $50 per page for poetry. Submissions are free for Canadians and $2 per poem for US submitters.

The Capilano Review

The Capilano Review was founded in 1972 at Capilano College in North Vancouver. They publish three print and digital issues per year. “Each issue of TCR includes art, poetry, fiction, essays, and interviews commissioned by the editor, as well as a small selection of unsolicited poetry and prose.” They accept submissions of poetry (max 8 pages) and prose (max 2,000 words).

Contributors are paid $50 per published page, max $500.

Carte Blanche

Carte Blanche is a Quebec-based online literary magazine that publishes three annual issues. They accept poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, photogprahy, and comics submissions.

All successful contributors will receive an honorarium of $75, along with publication in the magazine.

Exile Quarterly

“EXILE magazine publishes literary and speculative fiction, poetry, non-fiction, translations, drama and art from across Canada and around the world. Each year (four issues), we present approximately sixty contributors, which includes progressive talent who have previously published with us, through to new talent redefining the boundaries of contemporary literature and art.”

Exile Quarterly does not accept unsolicited submissions from non-Canadian writers. There is a $10 fee to submit work. They are a paying market; please see their website for details.

Peripheral Review

“Founded in 2016, Peripheral Review is an independent platform for documenting and expanding the emerging and under-represented Canadian art scene, as well as enabling access for emerging writers by encouraging accessible critical dialogue.” Peripheral Review accepts submissions of reviews (500-1,200 words), interviews (1,500-2,500 words), and potentially feature essays and experimental pieces.

Peripheral Review offers successful submissions a fee for published pieces on their website and in print.

Prairie Fire

Prairie Fire, based in Manitoba, is an award-winning Canadian journal of innovative writing that has been published quarterly by Prairie Fire Press, Inc. for over 44 years. They publish in print and online and accept submissions by snail mail only of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction.

Prairie Fire is a paying market at a rate of $40 per poem or $0.10 per word for prose.

Untethered Magazine

Untethered is a Toronto-based literary journal looking for poetry (max 2 poems) and prose fiction or non-fiction (max 3,000 words). They publish two print issues per year.

Contributors receive a $20 honorarium OR one copy of the issue in which the contributor’s work appears.

Vallum

Vallum Magazine publishes two issues each year, in print and digitally. They accept submissions of poetry, essays, and interviews. Vallum also runs a chapbook award as well as a poetry award.

Submissions require a minimum $3.00 donation.

Yolk

A Montreal-based literary journal, Yolk accepts submissions for Canadian contributors only for print issues and international submissions for their digital publication. They are looking for fiction and poetry not exceeding 3,000 words or non-fiction works (not exceeding 4,000 words) that suit specific prompts as listed in their submissions guidelines.

Yolk does not currently compensate its contributors, although those selected for publication in a print issue will receive a free copy of the journal.

For an additional twenty fabulous submission opportunities for Canadian writers, see my previous articles, 10 Notable Canadian Literary Magazines and 10 (More) Notable Canadian Literary Magazines.

The End of #30Words30Days

April went by in a flash — or in a blur of 30 tiny stories, depending on how you look at it. Here is the final installment from the 30 Words 30 Days Challenge.

Day 26: Native

There’s a land that runs in your blood, its hills and valleys mapped upon your skin, the far-flung sky more you than the name mama gave you before she went.

Day 27: Meeting

Brief meeting of minds behind the rusted back-alley dumpster sealed Josephine’s fate. She’d made too many people hide in the walk-in crying; there was about to be a back-of-house uprising.

Day 28: Clan

The gulls screech and scold each other as our clan compiles, waiting for the worst. Barnacles against a rising tide, and what do we do when the rock is gone?

Day 29: Company

New love, green as first leaves budding on a willow in spring, accompanied with apple blossom kisses and eyes as blue as robins’ eggs… The frost will come too soon.

Day 30: Belong

I belong to the shore. Let the surf wash endlessly over until the corners of my soul smooth. Let me lay, a treasure waiting for some peace-loving gatherer to find.

Take a stab at it in the comments and leave me a 30-word story of your own.

Yet More #30Words30Days

Here’s the latest batch of tiny stories for this month’s 30 Words, 30 Days challenge. It’s hard to believe the month is winding down and it will soon be May. I hope to return to your regularly scheduled programming of flash fiction, writing tips, and recipes soon.

Day 19: Stranger

Have you ever seen a stranger on a bus and just known in some core part of your being that in another world, at another time, they could’ve been everything?

Day 20: Guest

She’s got a hoar-frost vibe and a forced smile that feels like sleet driven horizontally by an east wind. You might be the guest, but she didn’t extend the invitation.

Day 21: Ideology

It’s giving true crime podcast. It’s giving Tay-Tay’s Reputation era. It’s giving mainlining PSLs [ironically] and Kendall cutting cucumber. Her ideology is nobody gives a schnitzel anyway, and it slays.

Day 22: Adjacent

There’s a restaurant adjacent to the old Super 8 that serves up heart disease on a plate with coconut cream pie for dessert. Rumor has it the coleslaw there has more than just Miracle Whip to credit for its tang.

Day 23: Ritual

It’s become a hallowed ritual, watching you each day. I see you from my window, just from where you park, until you disappear around the corner onto Main. 37 steps.

Day 24: Clique

All Penny’s friends told her the lake-trip was cancelled; their snapchat stories soon revealed the truth. No longer glossy enough to be included, she planned a surprise for her replacement.

Day 25: Initiation

A pair of drinking-fountains, porcelain streaked with rust, still adorn the hall —paint peeling, shabby linoleum. Climb tread-bare steps in fading light to spend the night alone with the whispers.

If you haven’t already, give it a go and post a 30-word story for me in the comments. C’mon, it would make my day!

30 Words, 30 Days – Week 3

If you haven’t already, you really must try writing a story in 30 words. It’s remarkably fun and freeing, and it’s the only writing I’ve done this month. Here are the next seven installments in my month of tiny stories.

Day 12: Heirarchy

There is a ranking amongst stuffies which must not be disrupted. Plump-yellow-cat may travel in the car, but only, and *only*, ratty-pink-dog may grace the pillow beside her slumbering head.

Day 13: Gang

It’s a mismatched gang that trundles down main, across the bridge over a late-summer memory of a river. Sun-kissed chums chasing one more adventure, before the streetlights call them home.

Day 14: Motley

I want to set this motley tapestry of emotions alight and watch it burn. Turn these unsought sentiments into sparks, watch them dance away into oblivion. Let me feel nothing.

Day 15: Individual

He’s spent so much time staring at the back of her head, he could almost tell you how each individual hair moves in a soft morning breeze, shimmering unattainable gold.

Day 16: Feast

Like the mosquitoes that feast on our unsuspecting ankles, I know our brief interaction will cause me future irritation. He’s charming, I guess, but here to feed and nothing more.

Day 17: Support

Can it be called support when, in fact, we’re just two eroded monoliths propping one another up by mere fluke of simultaneous collapse, our mutual decline serving an accidental stopgap?

Day 18: College

Gertie-Mae suspected that astrobiology might be the wrong major when she showed up for the first day of Planetary Habitability and she was the only one dressed in a spacesuit.

30 Words, 30 Days

It’s a cheat’s post again this week, folks. The only writing I have the capacity for at the moment is these tiny daily 30-word stories. Here are seven more to enjoy:

Day 5: Outcast

The lion cub, an outcast from the pride, strikes out on his own. Gangly and inexperienced in the ways of the savanna, he’s driven by hunger to kill. Me too.

Day 6: Solitary

Rusty silo, leaning barn, old John Deere with one good tire.
Laughing creek, weeping willow, ghostly rocking tire swing.
Dusty glass, cobwebs, screen door squeaking in the wind.
Godforsaken? Maybe.

Day 7: Identity

Perfection’s her identity, polished until she shines. No flaws, no misplaced hair. Benevolence. Gloss. Diligence. If ever she let the veil recede, fleetingly, oh—
The torrent would sweep her away.

Day 8: Build

I wish I could say we’ve built something beautiful, we misguided stewards of this fragile world, but as we raze this earth to raise our steel and concrete, everybody hurts.

Day 9: Oppression

Under oppression of his own dying body, all autonomy gradually stripped away. I must share this mourning; no-one can bear the weight. I’m losing dad, but end up consoling you.

Day 10: Together

“We’re all in this together,” she fibbed into the phone as she crammed clothing into a suitcase and waited for the cab. Leaving would be the least of her sins.

Day 11: Sharing

Paint has crusted over on brushes; the rinse water matches the sky. The landscape is lacking perspective and light, but I’ll keep it to see the world through your eyes.

Go on, then, leave me a 30-word story of your own in the comments. The prompt for Day 12 will be: Heirarchy

A Cheat’s Post

AlyWrites is on a hiatus of sorts this week. Working three jobs in an already busy season is not conducive to doing much writing. Instead of a brilliant new piece of flash, I offer my dear readers four tiny stories in 30 words.

In a delightful Twitter challenge from Sumitra, a super talented writer I first connected with through Writers’ HQ, I’ve been writing a 30-word story each day. It’s been fun to spend just a few minutes wrangling words and reading others’ contributions. At least, this way, I don’t feel like I’ve totally given up on writing for now.

Day 1 – Village

They called it a village as if something could connect this slapdashery of houses that had nothing in common but a sense of transience and the lingering odor of damp.

Day 2 – Communicate

What’re you trying to say, you with those wishing-well eyes? What do you silently speak with your origami smile? Is it love you communicate, or mere raindrops on the sand?

Day 3 – Chief

I worked in a kitchen, once, where the boss wouldn’t answer to anything but Chef. ‘Paul!’ I hollered, but he pointedly ignored as the soufflé behind him burst into flames.

Day 4 – Gather

“Gather what’s left of your dignity,” I order the defeated stranger staring back from the mirror, “and…”
And what, though? What could I possibly construct from all these hapless shards?

So there you have it—the best I have to offer at the moment. Now what are you waiting for? Try a 30-word story yourself, and leave it for me in the comments so I know I’m not alone out here.

March 2023 Editing Update

The month of March is soon to end, and here in southern Ontario, spring and its flurry of activity are about to begin. I am still very much in the throes of editing my first novel. This cozy mystery, I hope, will become a series featuring my cake-baking, procrastinating, cardigan-wearing millennial sleuth who can’t understand the pressure to have a side hustle when she doesn’t even want to have a main hustle.

At the end of January, I gave myself eight weeks to tackle my pages-long list of structural story edits. Including today, I’ve got four days to my March 31 deadline. With ten chapters yet to edit, I need to work my way through 2 1/2 chapters a day to finish. I’ve made some solid progress, but I’ve got a lot of work to do this week to meet that deadline.

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

Douglas Adams

I have two beta readers lined up and a potential third in the wings. Things are getting real. Am I happy with the novel as it is? I’m getting there. It’s certainly a lot closer than it was at the end of 2022. I can almost taste it now. There are still parts that I’m really unsure of, but feedback from my beta readers will go a long way toward identifying any remaining issues.

“I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something, you can be judged.”

Erica Jong

Accountability has really been key in regaining some momentum with this project. Announcing my intentions to people who understand what I’m working on, setting concrete deadlines for myself, and mapping out milestones that will lead to my ultimate goal has given an impetus to my WIP that it was lacking.

My biggest enemy is still procrastination. I took an entire week out at the end of February to attend the Literary Cleveland Flash Fiction Festival. It was heavenly. BUT, during the workshops that week, I started several new flash pieces. I spent much of the following week working on finishing one of them and submitting a few pieces to different literary magazines and competitions. See how quickly one week off can turn into a two-week abyss of distraction? Add to that the mind-numbing allure of TikTok and Netflix, and it’s a recipe for me never to finish this novel.

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.”

Mark Twain

I’m not thrilled that I’m a leave-it-to-the-last-minute kind of gal, but I am who I am, it is what it is, and that’s where we are. If I can manage to finish this round of edits by end of day Friday, I plan to pass the manuscript off to my beta readers and forget about it for a while. April is Camp NaNoWriMo again, and that might be a good time to revisit the draft of book 2 (yes, book 2 is drafted and eagerly awaiting some revision). On the other hand, it might be a good time to take a break from noveling and play around with some short-form fiction instead.

“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood. What mood is that? Last-minute panic.”

Bill Watterson

Tell me, what is your best procrastination-busting tip? And how do you reward yourself when you reach an important deadline?