Woo Hoo! Daily SF Takes Dibs On Dwarves

A bit of back story: When word came that we were to go into COVID-19 lockdown, my sanity-preserving decision was to write a new story every weekend. For a year (well, in this case, as it turned out — for “the duration” or else for a year, whichever came first).

So, most of these are flash, now that it’s over (the 52 weeks, that is) tending at around 1,000 words. One or two, I think, under 500 and with at least one that’s kissing 2,000. But then these days I’ve been writing short anyway. The challenge, however, is now to sell them.

Some, of course, may just suck — that happens too. But for those that can be sold, I don’t want to have done that much work for something that will get me, say, only $10.00. Not unless there’s some other reward too. So I’ve been tending to aim high for markets (one even went to “pro-zine” FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION — it came back fast) and, in some cases, more literary outlets. Part of the “fun” that kept me going was experimentation with such things as metafiction and post-modernism. So some may never sell at all because a market for them just doesn’t exist.

But today the anti-sale logjam burst! We would like to publish your story, “The Seven”, in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. We’ll email a contract to you shortly for your approval. A sample email, including any edits to your story that may be necessary, will come later. The edits will be sent with enough time for your feedback, so we may resolve any issues and present the best possible story to our audience. Yes, that’s DAILY SCIENCE FICTION which we last met almost two years ago with the Trumpian zombie satire “Steel Slats” (cf. December 20, August 23 2019, et al.), a high-circulation “early choice” market for less-than-1500-word stories that I’ve only placed in about six times before since mid-2011.

While as for the story, it’s titled “The Seven,” a riff on Snow White but more about stories and folklore collecting than the actual young woman herself (whose name, in any event, was “Mary,” or so the dwarves say). But then their names may mutate as well — a name, after all, is just what you call something — and, tired out from a hard day in the mines, maybe they sometimes embellish things too.

You never know — that’s fiction for you (with more to be posted here as it becomes revealed).