Magic should be everywhere, not just in Middle Earth or Hogwarts. And as my stories are currently like jokes about buses – none for months then two at the same time – I’ve got a tale of that everyday magic coming out next week.
Magic and menial work
Surprise Me, the story coming up in Daily Science Fiction, is a flash fantasy story set in a coffee shop. For me it’s the ultimate example of ‘write what you know’. I’ve had plenty of dull, uninspiring jobs where I’ve tried to make the most of a tedious situation. And I’ve spent an awful lot of time in coffee shops – not least in Barbicans coffee shop, the local place where I seem to do all my best work these days.
Obviously there’s a part of the story that isn’t ‘what I know’, and I won’t explain it here – that’s what the story’s for – but still, using such a familiar setting has worked surprisingly well, and got my story into a market I’ve been aiming for for a while – Daily Science Fiction.
Daily Science Fiction
Daily Science Fiction publish short sci-fi and fantasy by sending them out in emails most days of the week. This approach – fiction straight to your inbox – isn’t one I’ve seen elsewhere, but it seems to work for them. They’ve got thousands of subscribers and are a professional paying market despite their unusual model.
Given all the turmoil in publishing, it’s particularly cool to be published in a place where they’re trying something new, something that reaches a growing number of reads even as traditional magazine sales are falling.
Getting your story fix
My story comes out by email on 11 March. You can sign up for free to receive Daily Science Fiction’s stories by email, and if you do it by Tuesday then Surprise Me will be one of the first ones you receive. Failing that, it’ll be up on their website a week later, and you can check back then to find out whether you like what I’ve written.
I hope that you do.
So here’s to new publishing models, to finding magic in the mundane, and most of all to coffee.
Mm, coffee. Guess I know what I’ll do now…
Picture by Katherine Lim via Flickr creative commons
