How “Small Victories” Came to Be

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How “Small Victories” Came to Be

On September 24, 2014 What Follows was published! Not only does the anthology contain a plethora of fantasy short stories, it offers pieces from Anxiety Ink’s own Kate Larking and M.J. King! It also has my fantasy debut “Small Victories” inside.

Since we decided as a group to go indie on this project (i.e.: self-publish the anthology), it’s up to each and every one of us to push the book. As April said, “we are our own marketing machine,” but, because I’m friends with Kate, I can’t just scream at you to buy my book. I’m not that type of personality at all but it’s helpful to know she’d disown me if I tried.

So, instead of telling you to buy the book, I’m going to talk about my story’s conception and try to pique your interest! I’ve been blogging about the story for months but it’s hard to make it stand out while it’s faceless.

Many –many– months ago, Kate sent me an email and told me to contact the editor she’d worked with on FLaG because she had a new anthology idea in the works. I did so promptly, then bought FLaG and set to reading. A few emails later I was invited onto April’s next project. A few more emails later and the theme was sent our way.

Kate and I were working together in her basement right after we learned we were to tackle immortals dealing with the end of the world. I told her about my first brain-child, worried that I was taking on too much because I wanted to depict three different apocalyptic scenarios: zombies, global flooding, and a disease epidemic. I figured go big or go home with such a theme. Except I was having a helluva time trying to tie in immortals to those apocalypses let alone come up with a complete story. Kate was researching different mythological apocalypses looking for her own starting point. Then she said “Ragnarok.”

Hilarity ensued as we talked our problems out and something one of us said sent the other’s wheels turning. I left that cold day having dropped the zombies and disease in favour of valkyries and ice with plans to research two more pantheons’s mythological end of days for my story. I knew I wanted to tie in the Olympians because I’m a Greek mythology dork but I couldn’t have told you offhand that day what world-ending catastrophe Zeus and his gang were tied to.

I also didn’t want to stay western. I enjoy a global perspective so I didn’t want my story to be only, well, white-bread. I learned a lot about more eastern cultures in the early stages of plotting my story. As well as their respective mythological creatures. I had so many I wanted to go with, like ancient Babylon. At the end of the day I chose one that had a finite apocalypse that would work with my other two, I could grasp quickly, and write adequately.

I want to italicize, bold, and underline here that I still don’t know everything there is to know about the cultures in my story. I learned enough basic stuff so that I wouldn’t offend or look like a complete ignoramus. Even then, I took a lot of liberties because you can’t learn a culture in a month, let alone three cultures. That said, I’m sure anyone with more knowledge than myself will scoff, roll their eyes, and so on.

I shall hide behind this screen: my story is fiction AND fantasy. Moving on.

I wrote my first draft for NaNoWriMo 2013. It was close to 10 000 words and nothing like the draft I have now. And not just because I took April’s 6500 word cut-off to heart and got my piece edited to 7000 words before I broke down and asked April for more. She said as long as I kept it under 9k she’d be happy –insert *facecat* here. I learned a lot editing those 3500 words away and I made my story tight. It flows like it never would have.

I had a lot of fun writing my story, researching new cultures, and Googling pictures of lakes in Argentina. and am happy with what I put out. I think the extra time it took our group to get to publication (a failed Kickstarter, a failed Indiegogo, and a failed deal with a small publisher) gave me time I truly needed to mould “Small Victories.” Heck, I didn’t even have my current ending or title until the very last draft!

All I can say is I sincerely hope people enjoy their time with my apocalypses as much as I did.