Take a chance and cast your line!

One Good Thing…

It’s time for the weekly  post of a feature I’ve chosen to title “One Good Thing.” Each weekend, I’ll post something about what has been good to—or for—me during the week.

This week…

Back in March, I tried my hand at writing a piece of flash fiction at thestoryshack.com, which features a new writing prompt generator. I had been alerted to this wonderful feature by Luanne over at Writer Site and was eager to try it out.

Story Shack, founded in November 2011, is an on-line literary magazine featuring illustrated flash fiction. Its focus is to bring together the worlds of fiction and illustration by fostering relationships between authors and visual artists.

Using the writing prompt generator, I wrote a story titled “The Baker’s Tale” (apologies to Mr. Chaucer!) Afterwards, I checked out how to go about submitting the piece and decided I had nothing to lose, so–following the stringent submission guidelines–I sent “The Baker’s Tale” on its merry way for possible future publication in the Story Shack on-line literary magazine.

I didn’t think anything more of it, except to share it with readers in a post I wrote about the experience and how much fun it was to use the generator as a means to kick-start one’s writing, especially on those mornings when nothing seems to be inspirational or the ideas and words just won’t pop.

Fast forward several weeks to this past Tuesday when I received the following e-mail:

TO: Mark Anderson

SUBJECT: Your Story Shack submission

Hi Mark,

Thank you for submitting your story 'The Baker's Tale' 
to The Story Shack. I'm happy to tell you that it has been accepted.

The piece has been scheduled for publication on Monday, August 29, 2016. You will be placed in touch with an illustrator at least three weeks before it is due to go live.

Have a great day!

All the best,

Martin Hooijmans

Editor

https://thestoryshack.com

Needless to say, I was surprised and delighted at this piece of good news and am looking forward to seeing how the whole process plays out. No, I won’t receive any compensation for having it published, but that’s not the important thing here. Instead, I will have the opportunity to work with an artist and, hopefully, gain some valuable exposure “out there!”

It proves once again that if we take a chance and cast our lines, we might really catch something!

And for this week, that’s One Good Thing…