Now I Lay Me Down Again

I recently made another sale. Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep was picked up by the anthology December Tales II. Horror stories for Christmas, I guess. That makes Now I Lay Me my most popular story. It has been selected four times (Noise of a Quiet House, Terror House Press, The Chamber, December Tales II) plus got an enthusiastic thumbs up from a middle school class in Gibraltar (the rock).

So far that makes thirty-two (32) success stories. Not thirty-two separate stories because some have doubled up, e.g. Now I Lay Me with four acceptances, Inna Gadda da Vida with three, Johnny’s Got a Gun, Little Green Men and Welcome to Hell with two each. And Somewhere in Iowa is the gift that keeps on giving. I posted it on Amazon’s Vela and assumed it would be stuck in a corner somewhere and forgotten. Maybe it is, but every quarter I get a little addition to my bank account from Amazon.

But it was never about the money. Good thing, because I’m not making much (although Little Green Men brought in a nice check in the low three figures). I just love writing. The revising and editing…not so much. Kind of tedious. I’m more about the adventure of finding out what happens rather than ironing out the wrinkles. That being said, I still spend much time revising and editing my existing work; sometimes even the ones that have been published (in case of reprints). I was pleasantly surprised recently when my Muse struck and left two stories in my head. One is a speculative tale concerning crossed wires in the multiverse. I’ve been excited about the possibility of the multiverse since some of Hawkings theories have been confirmed by the Webb space telescope. The cosmos is probably weirder than we ever imagined.

The other story is just a reworking of some raw data. A few years ago, some relatives of mine (we all have those kinds of relatives) had an explosive break up, broadcast live on Facebook. It was bizarre, to say the least. It also had lots of melodrama so I made a screen grab of the entire conversation. Now I’ve used that data to create what I call an epistolary short story. It’s much condensed from the original manuscript and the names and some events have been changed. I’ve titled it Romie & Jules 2020. The characters have names similar to Shakespeare’s most famous play. It’s only about 2000 words so it’s a quick read. I’ve sent it to a few places but no bites yet. One editor responded that he found the idea of a Facebook drama “really quite clever”. I always like nice comments like that. It lets me know they’re paying attention.