Music and Babies

I thought this was very interesting. From Breakpoint with Chuck Colson, "Music in Utero" on June 29, 2009:

A segment of The Music Instinct featured Sheila C. Woodward of the University of Southern California, who has studied fetal responses to music. A camera and a microphone designed for underwater use were inserted into the uterus of a pregnant woman. And then Woodward sang.

The hydrophone picked up two sounds: the “whooshing” of the uterine artery and the unmistakable sound of a woman singing a lullaby.

Then something extraordinary happened. Upon hearing the woman’s voice, the unborn child smiled.

....Apparently, fetal responses to music aren’t limited to smiling. They have been observed moving their hands in response to music, almost as if conducting. They have been soothed by Vivaldi and disturbed by loud tracks from Beethoven. They have even responded “rhythmically to rhythms tapped on [their] mother’s belly.”

Submitting Pixie Savior

I've just submitted my flash fiction, "Pixie Savior," to Strange Horizons magazine.

Character Relationships

R. L. LaFevers gave some interesting advice in her June 23, 2009 post of Things Left Unspoken:

...It is the things left unspoken that define the relationship...

...it is the things we are too afraid or too angry to say that often define the shape and quality of our personal relationships. That betrayal you felt from your sister that you never dared to tell her about will shape all your future dealings with her. The fury you felt at your father, or the heartbreak your husband unknowingly dealt you; all of those emotions will bend and distort your interactions for years to come.

And it occurred to me what a powerful tool that would be to use in our writing, what an effective layer of subtext. So consider asking yourself, what is left unspoken between your characters? And how does it distort and drive their relationship to each other?

Rejection

I received a rejection from Flash Me magazine on June 14, 2009 for Pixie Savior. The comments from the editors were basically "left too much up to the imagination." (Actually, the comments were almost contradictory, and I had to figure out what common element could cause all their varied comments.)

I thought flash fiction was supposed to leave a lot up to the imagination. After all, wasn't the point to write as short a story as possible by telling the important things and so heavily implying the not-so-important things that the reader could accurately fill in the rest from their imagination?

I came to the conclusion I'd been wrong. Flash fiction is a complete story, with all details shown or told, in less than 1,000 words. So I re-wrote Pixie Savior, almost doubling it's length. It's now 765 words. My test reader said, "Wow, this version is so much better. I don't have to work as hard. Nice story."

So maybe I'm now on the right track. It's not so much of a challenge (which is what I liked) to write this type of flash fiction, but maybe this version will get published (which I like even more).

Settings are Important

From this article about SF/F:

O'Neill: Probably the best piece of advice I can give an aspiring writer is to pay as much attention to your setting as to your plot, characters, and prose.

When I'm reading an unsolicited manuscript, I'm reading to reject....So you've got a few precious minutes to grab my attention, and you better use them.

It's hard do with plot. If your plot is simple enough to communicate in the first two pages, I've probably seen it a hundred times. It's hard to do with character, for similar reasons.

It's easy to do with setting. Two pages is more than enough space to paint a picture of your world that grabs my attention, if it's fresh and intriguing. You can't compete with [other things demanding my attention] when all you have to offer is yet another version of the tale of King Arthur, or a generic medieval setting, or a tavern filled with rangers, dwarves, and a half-orc with a dungeon map.

Sending My Flash Fiction Out Again

I just submitted "Murderer" to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show magazine today.

Before I send out a story again, I always re-read it. Even though it's my own writing, "Murderer" keeps pulling me in. I really think it's a good story and good writing.

Weasel words in rejection letters

I just discovered something very important about rejection letters from this article:

What does "fit" mean for your magazine?

Nielsen Hayden: As used in rejection notes, it's basically a weasel word. We use it as a way of closing the door politely and firmly on a submission, and not getting snookered into a back-and-forth about what it would take to make something we don't like into something we'd buy.

Heck, I'm feeling downright sane again. *happy sigh*