𝑾𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘰𝘦𝘮 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 Getting me Back (The Voices Within) 𝘗𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 . 🫶🏼
Smoke Free is a weird little story conceived in the smoke of a brush fire. I was out in the woods snapping pictures one day, the images forming in the smoke combined with a twisted imagination and tada! The rest is history.
The photos below show the cover; from the first photograph to the finished cover.
Smoke Free is probably the only book cover we have not changed at least a dozen times. The truth is I have never wanted to change it. I love this cover and the image of that little pumpkin smoking a cigar never fails to amuse me. (I have the husband to thank for that.)
I had never heard of Irwin Smutter before that day and he (like the cigar smoking pumpkin) still amuses me with his absolute weirdness; him and the bizarre world he resides in.
And here’s a bite sized sample of the lunch break tale …
The room appeared empty other than an oversized sofa. Irwin reposed himself against the frigid vinyl, crossed his feet and sighed. A lively timbered scene covered the wall opposite the door, designed in such a way it almost looked like a window. Beyond the dull sheen of the pretend window was a forest where rays of sunshine cut through a smoky haze. The remaining walls were un-textured, pale and bare. The room smelled of sandalwood and acetone, a bizarre sweetness that sickened and comforted him at the same time. Irwin shifted nervously on the stiff upholstery in search of a warm spot. There was none.
The faux leather, the lifeless walls, the fake window – it was all too unsettling. Nothing is real, he thought, stretching his arms until his hands met above his head. Fads! The world has been reduced to kooks, phonies, and fads. Reassured by his own summation, Irwin interlaced his fingers and stretched further. When the joints in his entwined hands refused to pop, he rested them at the base of his neck.
Smoking cessation. Yeah, right. It was not Irwin’s idea. Irwin enjoyed smoking. The pungent smell of a fresh-lit cigarette made bitter coffee sweet. Smoking was one of the few things he looked forward to each day. A good smoke, a little booze, a lot of caffeine and Evie.
_________________________
These type short shorts were written at a time I was really into the flash fiction form of writing.
Oh. Oh. Oh. I can’t wait until you reach the end.
“ All eyes were on Wall Street, but truth be told, the market crash paled in comparison to the Navarro County drought.”
Black Thursday was no different. Margin calls and ticker-talk; it was all a foreign language to the average man of Navarro county. New York, Chicago and any place not adjacent to the dying province could have just as well been another country – another planet.
Suicides headlined newspapers across the globe. Although desperate men (and women) chose gas or bullets; poison or tablets to avoid poverty the stories of men leaping from windows sold more papers and it seemed to pacify the masses, at least for a while.
EIGHT MORE TAKE THE PLUNGE.
The headlines went on and on. Tales of a brutal bearish market where stock prices were plummeting and fortunes were being dissolved. The days grew long and the soup lines grew longer…
From Famine & Fortune (the Sharecropper’s Son) Available on sale at your favorite retailer.
And psssst Google still has it listed at 98¢
Happy Friday Y’all. 🍻
This piece for National Short Story Month was written with writers in mind, but readers are welcomed. We’re all one great big happy [most of us anyway] family here. After all writers are readers too.
I did a live presentation some years back titled The Art of the Short Story. In preparing the notes for said exhibition I borrowed a large portion of material from a fellow author. She is a veracious source of information and her published works are impressive. For the presentation I also offered my own sparse works as examples.
Word count matters.
Learn how to use the word count and check it frequently.
The nice thing about writing short stories verses novels/novellas [for me] is you don’t have to fluff up the word count with senseless babbling to make sure you hit the mark. But you do have to keep the word count at/around what your publisher requires; that can be very challenging sometimes. Especially if you get too attached or involved as I mentioned in an earlier post.
Writing short works helps you hone your writing skills.
When every word counts, writers tighten their prose. They eliminate filler words, passive voice, weak writing, or tangential thoughts—pretty much anything that requires extra words. No um’s or uh’s or well’s. No “was walking” when “walked” suffices. No “walked slowly” when “strolled” captures the mood better. No drifting into a daydream that doesn’t advance the plot.
These things slip in when we write novels, but they don’t really belong there, either. And just think how strong your novels will be when you develop these stylistic choices and apply them to your longer works.
The short story can be used to introduce one of your longer works.
Regardless of the theme of the anthology, you can write a companion piece to an existing novel or series. This can be an excellent marketing tool.
For example, say you have a paranormal romance series you’d like to promote, and you have an opportunity to contribute to a horror anthology. You could tailor your horror story so that it’s a prequel or sequel to the first book in your paranormal romance series. You might even choose to weave in a little romance so readers have a better understanding of what to expect in the series. As long as the story meets the requirements for the anthology, you’ll have a great introduction to your longer work placed in front of an already interested audience.
The short story format allows you the opportunity to explore different genres without committing time to compose a longer work.
Instead of expanding your series offering, you might take the opportunity to try something completely different from what you normally write. For example, a regency romance writer might choose to craft a futuristic sci-fi story.
What do you gain from such a departure?
Well, not only do you get to flex your creative muscles, the departure might actually recharge your batteries and give you a fresh perspective on the novel you’re working on. Furthermore, you may just find another genre that you enjoy writing in and a new fan base should you decide to become a multi-genre author.
Short stories are ideal for a genre driven magazine.
Potential acceptance equals potential income and exposure.
There are literally thousands of genre magazines that accept submissions. If you have an agent great. If you don’t that’s okay, you can submit it yourself; that is if they accept direct submissions. Its easy enough to find those answers with a little research.
A short stories work well in creating a series. Think of each new release as an episode.
A series can be done on a weekly or monthly basis. This can be fun without being time consuming.
Short stories allow you to participate in anthologies with other writers.
psst, I was able to share the spotlight with a few others in Unshod
When you participate in anthologies, you will most likely have to adhere to a set word count, one that is substantially smaller than that of the novels you’re used to writing. While this virtually eliminates the possibility of introducing secondary characters and developing subplots, it does teach economy of phrase.
How to Publish Short Stories
If you have questions drop me a line and I’ll try to help you.
Right on? Write on!
Door Number Four was possibly one of the funnest short stories I’ve ever written.
It was originally written as a paid assignment but blew through the word count.
They weren’t budging on the number of words they wanted and I could not imagine what more I could cut from the story and make it readable.
We were at a stalemate so the deal was abolished. Oh well Que Será, Será.
I admit I may have become too attached to the story — and too detached from the individual $pecs. So all there was left to do was publish Door Number Four my damn self.
This book (like most) has undergone at least one cover change.
I’m not in love with the current cover but I can change it whenever I want. That’s always fun too.
Here’s the intro.
Donald S. Crowley was a CPA by day; a bean counter; a number cruncher and a certified bore. By night he was as stimulating as the hero in his latest read with all the social skills of a brick. To make matters worse he was in love with a door. Not just any door, number four was special. Donald had become enamored with her when he was just a boy and he believed that she called him by name. Now he would risk his life to see her again and to finally know what lay behind Door Number IIII.
I hope you have endeavored to read a short story, or two, this month. And if you are a writer, I hope that you have written at least one short story.
I think that’s all I shall ever from here forward. 
Right on? Write on!
This short story is actually based on a true story. Yes, really!
It is not a biography nor is it considered a historical account.
August Wolf was a real person and he reportedly worked in the lab with the atomic bomb — that was a real thing.
Him being left on the side of the road for dead was true enough.
But the rest – the names and places have been changed to protect the guilty.
I dropped the e in Wolf like that would somehow protect me from his “handlers”.
I named the character Jason Carroll, after my parents, combining their names, but they had nothing to do with the story. I’m not sure I ever told them about the real character I knew named August Wolf.
That’s a little backstory on August Wolf.
No go grab a book or a pen or a keypad and enjoy yourself.
OK, I was today years old when I learned that May is International Short Story Month.
Did the rest of you already know that?
I should have known. After all it has been a real thing since 2010!
I love short stories. Reading or writing — I love `em !!
I feel like such a detached recluse for not knowing this? And now May is on its last leg; breathing her last dying breath.
Maybe that’s a tad exaggerated; but there’s less than two weeks left.
Oh well, there’s no time like the present. Right? Right!
So I thought I would start at the beginning and elaborate on a piece (or two) that I wrote.
The bait that hooked me on short stories so to speak. 
I think Perpetual Darkness might be the first short story published under Janna Hill and then I believe Perpetual Spring immediately followed. And then they were brought together in the Perpetual Series.
To the best of my recollection, it went something like this.
I was sitting at the typewriter in my office late one night with the window open, enjoying the sweet smells and familiar sounds drifting in on the breeze and all of the sudden my imagination just shifted gears — like it’s prone to do.
I imagined someone, a man, might be outside the window watching me as I typed.
I quickly found myself inside the stranger’s mind, looking from the outside in and perhaps judging each word I pecked out of the dull story I was working on. 
Once I finished that twisted little short story I, of course, had to give the female at the typewriter a voice.
That is how Max and Abigail were brought to life. 
I quite enjoyed developing the characters and then condensing them into short stories.
After a few short stories under my belt I gravitated to flash fiction which awakened a new passion that I never knew existed inside myself.
But keep in mind flash fiction is a different animal than the short story. The short story allows much leeway where the flash fiction genre often times comes in at 1000 words or less, but that’s for another time.
Now go enjoy some short stories my friend.
If you’re not writing a short story I hope you’re at least reading one and let’s celebrate what’s left of May and the month of short stories.
Our formative years shape our perspective and the culmination of our experiences spark the creative juices.
Sometimes the juices they spark are as sweet as honey and nectar … or as tart as a key lime … as sour as a pickle … but sometimes they are bitter.
So so bitter.
May usually has a very positive influence on my mood despite being the anniversary month of the death of my older sister 48 years ago and my mother eleven years ago.
I think May has got me in my feels. A little too much I might add because my emotions are running the gamut friends!! Not in a creative kind of way either.
I just miss them. I miss my mother.
And.
And I find myself rehashing the days that sparked a few of my creative juices.
Today I was going over that stormy day eleven years ago- the day that inspired the following poem.
The Last
The last bit of sorrow swelling
from closed eyes…
sitting as if waiting…
near the temple at the outer corner…
The storm outside was magnificent!
Sheets of rain surrounded us like walls of glass, but we broke through at 90 miles per hour.
Rolling thunder rattled the windows, as if mumbling words
only we could understand.
Brilliant shocks of light
from every direction lighted the way;
each dazzling strike followed by ostentatious paternal claps that said, Enough! Take my hand – hurry!
The thick charcoal sky parted in bilious shades of gray like the Red Sea…
And I saw…
The last moment –
the last millisecond
the last breath.
The last bit of sorrow
and pain
and worry.
The last tear sitting –
as if waiting
near the temple
at the outer corner of her left eye.
I caught it…
I watched it soak into the edge
of a paper napkin and sealed it in a tiny bag.
No words were necessary.
She was out of earshot –
out of the audible range
of the childlike pleadings of stay.
She was at last where she longed to be;
the two of them as one again.
Somewhere safe above the storm,
laughing like children and holding hands.
It was the last time I saw
her and daddy together.
*It was the worst spring storm I can recall. I had barely made it home before the bottom fell out and I was enjoying the heavenly show. I know it seems ‘abnormal’ but I do love a good storm. This one was raging an hour’s drive in any direction.
I was on the phone talking to my youngest sister when the doctor called.
I had just told her our mother was alert and talking, she looked good and her condition was stable. Moments later the doctor was contradicting me.
“Your mother went into cardiac arrest blah blah blah. I was not aware of the DNR blah blah blah. We are in the process of trying to restart her heart, doing CPR blah blah blah. Do you want us to continue blah blah blah?”
There was no problem with the connection yet his gentle voice came in shrill broken fragments. I had him [the doctor] on one line, my youngest sister on another and I was frozen between them. I must have asked, “what should I do?”
I recall my sister choking out the words “let her go.”
My husband had the truck ready before I could hang up the phone.
The photo above is where I laid flowers on the memorial today; the memorial I made for myself – where I planted the last tear that I mentioned in the poem.
Purple was her favorite color. There is only a small red sandstone (from her native east Texas) marking the teardrop’s final resting place.
The Real Janna Hill in 