M.M. Schreier's Blog, page 7

Writing Battle

In February I participated in a new-to-me contest “Writing Battle.” In fact, it was kind of new to them as well – while they’ve hosted a number of screenwriting battles, this was their first Flash Fiction battle.

It’s a very interesting premise. Each participant gets assigned one of four possible genres. (We don’t know what the possibilities are in advance.) In addition, everyone gets individualized location and object prompts. Then you have the weekend to write a piece of flash fiction. Pretty standard, yes?

The twist is, once the stories are in, all the participants become judges. You get a handful of “duels” to judge. In the duel two stories are presented for you to read, leave both positive and constructive feedback for, and then vote on which you thought was better. You never judge in the genre you wrote in, so you aren’t voting for stories in direct competition with you. In this way, stories are slowly weeded out, until the final two stories in each genre are passed on to industry professionals to crown the winner in each genre.

I ended up in the “Vampirical Romance” group, with my location as a “station” and my object as “roots.” I wasn’t super thrilled with getting a romance, but I wrote something pretty out of the box… this is not a typical vampire or romance.

And, yet, I won!

You can go and read my winning story here, as well as an interview with yours truly. For any of my family following along, you’ll probably recognize some of the inspiration here. Enjoy!

Sad Feels

It’s always sad to hear that a good magazine is closing it’s doors. Worse, I think, when it is a genre market as there are fewer opportunities out there for those of us who write a lot of speculative fiction.

This week the final issue of Land Beyond the World Magazine was announced.

If you haven’t had a change to hop over there and read my story from last fall–Eternal Afternoons–now is the time. My understanding is that the online content will only be available until November.

You might also want to take the opportunity to check out some of the other stories as well. I might recommend Professional Courtesy by Trey Dowell and A History Lesson by Lisa Fox–two talented authors I’m pleased to call friends.

Thank you Land Beyond the World for supporting my work and for all the great reads!

The Dark Sire Annual Creative Awards

I’m super excited to announce that I’ve been named a finalist in The Dark Sire magazine’s annual Creatives Award. There are four finalists in the Horror category and I love that my story “It Tastes of Salt and Terror” is on that list!

I really love monster stories, of all kinds. This story features a wendigo. If you are unfamiliar with the legend, wendigos are humans, who through their own folly, are cursed into grotesque creatures with an all-consuming hunger. It made me wonder, how much humanity would a monster like this retain, and what would the all-pressing need to feed do to their psyche? And so I wrote the story, partially in the creature’s POV to explore the theme.

There are a number of awesome authors also on the finalist list, so win or lose, I’m still pleased the judges enjoyed the story.

The winners for all categories will be announced in a live zoom ceremony on 20 Feb, at 6pm EST. If you want to attend and watch all the excitement live, all you have to do is RSVP to: darksiremag@gmail.com.

Publication Alert: The Lorelei Signal

Happy New Year!

I’ve very pleased to announce I have a new short story out today at The Lorelei Signal — “A Price Already Paid.”

Let this fantasy short immerse you in a strange and vibrant new world. The villain – Jackum – is one of my favorite characters of all time. There’s so much more to his story than what you see on the page, but never fear, his tale is waiting to be told!

Happy reading!

Publication Alert: Land Beyond the World Magazine

Happy Monday! Looking to read a bit of bittersweet SciFi to get you started today? Well check out my new piece at Land Beyond the World Magazine — Eternal Afternoons. It’s a very human piece – a reminder that loss comes for all of us, even in a far off future. The question is, how do we deal with it?

Happy reading!

Publication Alert: Molotov Cocktail

Happy Halloween!

I was super excited to find out the other day that I came in 6th place in The Molotov Cocktail‘s Flash Monster Contest. I love flash, and I love monsters! And now, just in time for Halloween, you can go read the top ten winning stories!

What makes this even more exctiing for me, is that my story in the issue–“Inhale, Exhale“–is officially my 50th published piece.! That’s a heck of a trick-or-treat!

Go check out the stories in the issue. It’s full of dark and creepy things to get you in the Halloween mood!

Publication Alert: WayWords Issue 4: Unreal

Check out this new issue of WayWords literary journal. This issue explores the theme of “Unreal.”

In my short story, “Flattened,” we explore exactly how far will Alice go to find a street that exists only in her dreams.

Get your copy today!

Publication Alert: Merfolk

Check out this new anthology – “Merfolk” from Iron Faerie Publishing. (e-book only, print forthcoming)

Immerse yourself in tales of the sea, magical creatures, hidden cities and more as you plunge into the deep, dark depths to explore the wonders and curiosities that the sea has to offer.

Each of the stories in this book, including my own “To Long for the Sea,” is exactly 500 words long. Bite sized, but rich and magical. Get your copy today!

Writers Games: Results, Book, & Interview!

In case you have not been following along with my social media, I won the Writer’s Workout’s Writer’s Games this year. This is a high intensity contest–five weeks, five prompted stories, each written within 72 hours of insanity. I know a lot of the competitors, and they are a talented bunch, so I am beyond honored to have won this contest for a second time.

If you want to know a little more about the process, check out my interview with Writer’s Workout here.

The fun part about this contest is that the top five winners each week are published in their anthology, aptly titled “72 Hours of Insanity.” In it you’ll find two of my stories “Mine to Keep” which placed 5th in Event 3 and “For Want of a Conversation” which placed 1st in Event 5. Both are alien SciFi, but, if I do say so myself, extremely different kinds of tales. I’m 100% in love with my MC, a very unlikely heroine, in “For Want of a Conversation.” I hope you love her as much as I do!

I do hope you take a moment to read the introduction to this book, by yours truly. I wrote it while on vacation at the beach and it’s a pretty naked glimpse at what makes me tick. A rare thing indeed.

Get your copy today. I love that the Games anthologies are filled with such varied tales. Enjoy!

Publication Alert: Wyldblood

I have a group of writing friends that plays a game called the One Hour Challenge. It’s pretty simple – someone posts a photo or a bit of music or video or verse, what have you, then we all have exactly one hour to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by the prompt.

It’s an excellent way to practice the concept of don’t think, just write, because if you get caught up in your head, you’ll never finish a 1k story in the allotted time. Rarely do I manage something polished, sometimes it’s not even complete. However, if I can forget my inhibitions, and just write, I’ll end up with a rough little gem. Something that with a little love and revision, has great promise.

Today’s story “City of Lights” at Wyldblood Press is one of those word babies that I birthed in that chaotic process. I’m kind of proud of it. I hope you enjoy it as well!