Submission: Grave Mistakes

I finally finished and submitted my thriller short story "Grave Mistakes" to Emerald Tales "It was a bright and sunny day" issue. "Grave Mistakes" is a 3400-word story, and here is the blurb about it: After the Grave Digger makes the mistake of leaving a live victim, FBI agents AJ Cook and Ryan Delos are hot on his trail. They discovered their unsub, and they are waiting outside the cabin to arrest him and save his current abducted young woman. Yet, the agents make mistakes of their own. Who will come out alive in this fast-paced thriller?

"Grave Mistakes" took me a long time to write. I originally intended to write it in January, but instead I wrote "Breaking Bifrost." Then, I began writing the story, but it sounded so flat to me. I liked the beginning, and I was at the final part of the story. Then, I decided to scrap most of it and just write the ending. Considering there is a 4000-word limit, I'm glad that I did what I did to the story. Otherwise, the story would have been close to 5500 words. So, I took the first three paragraphs of the beginning, used them as a memory for Special Agent AJ Cook, and ran from there. I'm much happier with the story as it is, and I want to thank my critique buddies to their suggestions.

I've been very lax with writing lately, and I think it is the weather. It's been cold and snowy since December here, and I'm completely fed up with it. It has disrupted work, sleep, and my writing. Plus, I still can't get my car out of the driveway, and it's been stuck there for two weeks! I hope the snow is behind us and that we can eventually warm up.

For the rest of February, my writing goals are simple: write my writing contest entry (a new ending for Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying) and write my short story for Pill Hill Press's Atlantis anthology. I don't have much time left for either one, but I hope to finish them this weekend. If I can, then I can finally get back to working on my novels! *crosses fingers* I also need to edit one old short story and submit it out again.

I don't have any other writing or other news. I still have a few submissions out there that I'm waiting to hear back, but it might be a while. We'll have to wait and see.