May is National Short Story Month

Short Story Month (Door Number Four)

/ Janna Hill / 1 Comment

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!

Short Story Month (In the Beginning)

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

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.