Time’s Running Out, Watson (Good News!)

A month or so ago (here), I mentioned taking some time out to write a quick short story. For a little more context, I was reading a Magical Words post (here) that referenced a submissions call for “An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes”, an anthology from Mocha Memoirs Press, edited by A.C. Thompson, an author and Sherlock Holmes fan herself. The collection was intended to have a fantasy/horror flavor and be a twist on the original detective novels, spurred by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate’s decision to release copyright on the characters for public use.

I have been recently watching Sherlock Holmes (the BBC production) on Netflix, which is great, and I very much enjoyed all of Mr. Doyle’s original books, as well as obviously loving fantasy, so the idea struck me with a bit of adrenalin, even though I probably should have been editing my novel instead. 🙂 So I had some fun diversion time writing a story in that vein, then workshopping it on OWW.

And last week… it got accepted! 😀 Whoop, whoop.

I am very jazzed. This is my first fantasy-related acceptance, and I’m thrilled. It will give me something to put in my cover letters for fantasy writing as well, which never hurts!

Hopefully people enjoy both the story and the book! I’m looking forward to seeing both. I believe that the publisher is hoping for an October release, but we’ll see.

Here’s hoping you get your own great news soon!

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In an ironic twist, I actually had a Sherlock Holmes themed pencil sketch (even if it doesn’t look like the iconic figure), because it was an exercise for a SCBWI conference in Ottawa that I attended a while back. The exercise was to try and create a YA-vibe cover for a Sherlock Holmes story. I never finished it up, but you can enjoy the line work here, done in about half an hour during the conference workshop. On a side note, I learned a very important lesson about YA covers at the same time. Plan for the text BEFORE you do the piece. Luckily, in this case, no text required. 🙂

I am polishing up the first three chapters of my fantasy WIP, now called StoneDragon (previously the Broken Cowboy and a few other things) and will probably put them up on OWW for feedback. Lots of writing and polishing for that novel still required, but it will be nice to have the first few chapters done and edited, as those are the most stressful ones. If a reader gets past chapter three, you’re rocking and rolling. 🙂