I’m a touch late on this, but here it is! The backstory behind my recent release, “Circles of Revenge,” with Livina Press.
I owe the origins of this story to Siobhan Muir’s weekly #ThursThreads flash fiction challenge, which is currently running it’s eleventh year of tying on tales of 250 words or less. Impressive, right?
I joined the challenge for the first time somewhere back in Year 4, though I can’t at all remember when exactly. I figured it was good writing practice and a way to tickle the muse.
Turns out, I was right.
At the very end of that year, Week 208 (3.17.2016), I wrote a tale that gained me an honorable mention from that week’s judge. I remember it distinctly because I was exhausted when I wrote my measly 200 some words. I wasn’t actually up for writing that afternoon, laying on my bed, staring up at my phone using a notes app to ramble what I thought was some nonsense prose like poetry in a matter of minutes.
For the life of me, I can’t remember what the short, few word sentence prompt was that week anymore, but those 200 odd words that gained me an HM stuck in my head with a vengeance. I never quite forgot them, unlike some of the other flash I’ve written.
Fast forward two years to 2018, I took that little snippet and turned it into a short story for a writing contest through college. It didn’t win, obviously, but I held onto that piece because I loved it.
Now fast forward a little further to last year, I got it edited by a professional (shout out to Wesson Editorial Services on Facebook) and submitted it to another college literary magazine through the International English Honors Society that I was inducted into. No luck.
By this point, it had been years since I dabbled in almost any of my writing. I basically went on a near seven-year writing hiatus due to a personal friendship incident that destroyed my confidence and passion. But at the end of 2023, after I’d had “Circles of Revenge” edited, I decided it was finally time to get my name back out there after VTP’s closing, where I was first published. I wasn’t ready to touch one of my novels yet, but short stories and literary magazines seemed like a good place to begin dipping my toes back into this industry. (Also, previous published work looks good when querying agents, so it’s a good starting place for credibility and talent.)
So, that’s what I did. In January I started submitting this story to literary magazines, hoping it would see the light of day with someone who would love it as much as I did.
It took three and a half months, 25 submissions, and 15 rejections — not counting the two college contests — but my little story of now 1,500 words got accepted with a wonderful literary magazine that made my dreams come true for a second time.
While this story would likely have never existed without Siobhan’s #ThursThreads challenge, it’s a real relief to know that the characters, plot, even the idea itself, aren’t wrapped up in anyone else’s expectations. There’s no one else’s validation or influence riding on my worth as a writer in this tale, and that… That is a very freeing feeling from the weight that has been resting on my shoulders for nearly seven years.
Moral of the story: If you ever question your talent as a writer because of other’s actions and opinions, don’t. Your time of success will come if you just keep going.
A big thank you to our #ThursThreads hostess Siobhan, Wesson Editorial Services for helping me polish this piece, my good friend P.T. Wyant for the editing service recommendation, and, of course, Livina Press for believing in my little poetry-like fantasy tale enough to publish it.
Darkling Dreams 