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Saturday, August 9, 2008

Fairy tale submission to Dante's Heart

Well, that's another short story done and submitted. This time the subject was a culmination of many tales of coming of age.

The story centers around a young girl and a wolf that she comes across. With this as the premise, it was sort of ambitious for me to try to draw it away from the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, but I don't think I did a terrible job of keeping it distinct. It helped that my wolf was not only wolf, but also man, for a portion of the story, faintly reminiscent of the Angela Carter's take on Little Red, A Company of Wolves.

Other influences that became apparent as the story created itself were that of Alice being changed for her experiences in Wonderland, and of course of Sarah inside of Jareth's Labyrinth.

However, as I am a romantic, I had my characters leave with a happily ever after and of continued being together-ness. Okay everyone, on the count of romantic -- "Awww."

So, within 6 to 8 weeks, I should be able to find out if I have a place in Dante's Heart's autumn publication.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Fairy tales and short stories

I think that retellings of old fairy tales are one of the new ways of getting them seen anew by those who haven't experienced them yet.

I've lately been reading Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland, by Lady Francesca Wilde, and finding them a really great source of inspiration for my current WIP and future stories that I plan to set in the same world as Unity. Francesca Wilde, consequently, was the mother of Oscar Wilde, who I can't believe I actually haven't written about in here before now.

I've never been one for writing short stories. Short stories, to me, have always ended up as a story idea that I didn't like enough to continue with, or alternately, a prologue for a longer story. This week, I was astonished and excited to write my very first short story, within the mystical fantasy genre that I have been indulging in now for quite some time.

Obvious for me to say, this story came with quite some inspiration from Lady Francesca's work. It only came in at almost exactly 1,000 words, and after some consideration, I have decided to submit it as a short piece for a fantasy magazine that I have been eying off for a little while now, and just wishing that I had something that was self contained, which I could share with them. As I look through my tags, I realise that I have mentioned this particular ezine before now, and had high plans to send them something already. This is something I obviously haven't done, considering I forgot it until this very moment. *bites lip*

The magazine's name is Les Bonnes Fees, and their website is http://www.les-bonnes-fees.com/. They have a current issue to peruse that's really worth a look over.

As with most things I post in here, I mostly wanted a convenient place to link this for myself. ;) So if I actually get accepted here, I might actually begin my branching from the romantic fantasy niche to include a more traditional fantasy readership. Could be fun, at the very least!


Nikki Watson.