Deadlines, Details, and Other Dead Things

Recently, I've tried my hand at some some flash-fiction horror, with the intent of submitting to Havok Magazine's Halloween issue. I intentionally didn't look at the specific content requirements before writing these stories. This is because, while I did want to submit them if they were good, I mostly just wanted to write them. I figured I could always go back and write more if they didn't fulfill the issue requirements.

Because of my summer factory job, I have a lot of time to think through stories and ideas. I even write large parts of them in my head while folding towels. The first story I wrote was called Double Tap. It's really hard to judge my own writing, and horror isn't my strong-suit, but I think I did manage to create something that was creepy at the very least. After getting it written and polished up, I finally glanced over the content requirements to see if I'd need to tweak anything. If it was an easy fix, I would do that and then go ahead and submit. If not, well, I'd write another story and get more practice!

You've probably guessed that I had to take the latter option.

It turned out that among the requirements, stories for this issue had to feature traditional Halloween monsters. You know the kind: zombies, vamps, werewolves, poltergeists. I considered changing an element of the story to include a zombie, which wouldn't have been uber hard, but it would've required me to take out a detail that I really liked.

No.

Rather than make this change, I went back to work the next day and dreamed up another story. What about a court case where Doc Frankenstein is on trial for creating a monster without a license? And Dracula is the judge! And Frankenstein uses the precedent of Jekyll and Hyde to defend himself! Yeah!

No.

That story didn't work, either. While I had now incorporated traditional monsters into it, it was funny but no longer scary. At least I hope it was funny. It was funny to me.

The Frankenstein's Trial story had no scariness-potential whatsoever, as in, on the scariness meter, it was rated at Powerpuff Girls. So I wrote one more story. This would be the masterpiece to end all stories! The terror to frighten all other terrors!

It had bumps in the night. It had murderous suits of cursed armor. It was told in the Epistolary form, via the case log of a Scotland Yard Detective Inspector in 1855. I just finished it, and I quite like it.

But it will not work for Havok's Halloween issue. Why? Because the deadline was the 24th of this month, which was before I even wrote the second of the three stories!

I need to check my deadlines, people. My writing professor has a saying about them: "Deadlines are literal! As in, cross this line and you're dead!" I'm usually pretty good at this type of thing. This mistake isn't a waste, because I enjoyed writing the stories and I gained practice from them. Still, getting published is always a nice feeling, and is nice for the wallet and the portfolio.

I'll probably hunt around for some other submission venues for these as well as other stories I haven't gotten around to submitting yet (shame on me!), and then possibly post them to this blog if that doesn't pan out. Sorry for the pause in my advice for writing conferences. I really will get back to that. Hey, ain't ya proud of me for updating more regularly this summer?

Have a good evening!