This month has been especially busy for me. I worked on four short stories, averaging one per week. I’ve never written four short stories in a month before, and the output has been tremendous. Of these, one is a novelette, weighing in at about 12,000 words. I’ve also set my sights on writing a tale for Shadow Spark’s anthology for 2025.
Short stories are fun, bite-sized nuggets you can read in one sitting. My first published short story, Citizen Alpha, appeared in the October 2018 issue of Outposts of Beyond. It’s my love letter to retro-futurism, set in amid the towering spires and wide avenues of Champion City, a teeming metropolis of flying cars, jetpacks, and corporate intrigue. Part science fiction, part alternate history, and part murder mystery, the story took me a few years to polish and craft. I find most short stories I write start out malformed mutants in need of love. After many years of pruning, sculpting, and shaping, they emerge as beautiful word-babies.
Rejections used to make me sad. When an editor rejects your story, impostor syndrome hits like a tidal wave. You can’t escape feelings of inadequacy, that your writing will never get better. But each rejection is an opportunity for you to improve your story and reread it with a fresh perspective. That’s what happened to two of my favorite short stories, Make Lovecraft, Not War and The Black Cloak. Both of those ill-behaved word spawns started out as monster children I kept locked away in the basement. Only after many rejections did I take a critical look at them and edited with a vengeance. After a few years, the stories eventually found their way into publication.
Blood Family is in Production
My novel Blood Family is currently undergoing developmental edits. A beta reader who read the manuscript gifted me with several positive comments, among them:
“You have a screen-writer level of competency with dialogue. This was something I loved about your writing.”
“I felt immediately connected to your voice and this easy style of writing. The descriptions and action are compelling and the tension is high, so that was particularly engaging.”
“You did such a great job not only developing the main characters, but also the various Armenian family members. They were all distinct and real.”
“I was very invested in the characters, and immersed in the world you have created.”
“I absolutely loved the elements of your Armenian culture. This was amazing. I’m truly fascinated by how many supernatural parallels there are in various cultural myths, so I love that you explored this from a place of what you know.”
The book still has another round of edits, but things are shaping up nicely and we’re on track for a December release. While this is brewing, I’m drafting an outline for book 4 of The Martyr’s Vow series. I’m not finished with Armand and Vonnie’s story yet. More news on this soon! Until then, keep it weird.
Eric Avedissian 