Two of my flash fiction pieces have been published recently. Shush was published by Theme of Absence and The Man on the Train was published by The Starving Artist.
 
Theme of Absence is a market I’ve been tracking for a while. I first submitted a story to them about 12 months ago which was rejected, but the rejection was encouraging.
 
They publish speculative fiction, and do author interviews too. You can read my interview here. You can read Shush here.
 
The quality of fiction on Theme of Absence is pretty good. I’d recommend checking them out from both a reader & writers perspective.
 
The Starving Artist published The Man on the Train, and I’m glad I’ve finally managed to get this one published. The Man on the Train was originally written in answer to a challenge given to me by another writer. I’ve had nothing but positive comments about it, but it has collected a few rejection slips. The rejections have always stated, “We liked it but it’s not a good fit for our mag.”

The Man on the Train is a good example of why you shouldn't give up on a piece just because it has collected a couple of rejections. Isaac Asimov said:

"You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist." 
 
I stumbled across The Starving Artist a few weeks back. I wasn’t sure if it would be a good fit for them or not as they’re a very new market concentrating on Flash fiction & poetry. 
 
They're not genre specific it’s more about good quality writing. Please check them out and see what you think.You can read The Man on the Train here.
 
Both markets can be found in the Selected Markets page of this site. Theme of Absence has been listed there for some time.
 
Take care,
 
Mike

Well, a quarter of 2016 has flown by already. If anybody knows where the time goes, and has any ideas on how we can all slow it down, please let me know.
 
2016 has been pretty good to me so far. I’ve had two acceptances and both works should be published over the next few months. I still get a buzz when I see my work in physical print, or E-print.
 
Acceptances can be scary though. When a story gets rejected a handful of people will have read your submission. When you get an acceptance your work is scheduled to be exposed to the entire readership of the publication that said, YES! It’s a sobering thought and it’s exactly why you shouldn’t submit a story until you’re 200% happy with it. As a writer you should take pride in your work, and you should strive to deliver your very best for your audience.
 
I’ve worked on six issues of Firewords Quarterly and it still surprises me that we get submissions with really basic errors: Missing full stops, spelling mistakes etc.
 
Spelling mistakes is probably my pet hate. Pretty much every word processing package out there will highlight spelling mistakes. Ms Word underlines the offending articles with a big red squiggly line. There’s no excuse for an author not to make those corrections. It’s lazy writing.
 
The perfect submission probably doesn’t exist, and I’m not asking for it. I’m pretty sure that some of my own submissions are guilty of having a misplaced or missing comma. But is there any excuse for really basic errors?
 
Anyway I’m going off topic. The words have been flowing lately. Although, not exactly as planned. Quite a few times I’ve sat down to write Project A, or B, and nothings really happened. Then the muse will give me a painful elbow to the ribs, and I’m writing something completely new, completely unplanned. Two stories have come to fruition thanks to the muse: Shush and A Brief History of Doozer’s Cyclic Theory of Re-Invention. Both were seat of the pants creative outpourings and I had no idea where they were going.
 
I’ve also been busy with re-writes and submissions.
 
The Ending has been re-titled as Beautiful. The prose has been cut and submitted to Anti-Heroin Chic under a different pen name.
 
Dancers was tweaked following some useful feedback from my buddy Dan Burgess. I’ve entered it into the annual FictionDesk, Ghost Story, competition. I hope it does well. Any writer likes their work but sometimes a writer can’t help having favourites, and Dancers is one of mine. The standard at FictionDesk is high though, so it’s going to be up against some strong competition. Fingers crossed.
 
The Man On The Train has been sent to The Starving Artist. I’m pretty confident that I can place this one somewhere. Feedback has been universally good. It’s just finding the right market.
 
Wiped Clean has been re-titled The Remote Control Love Affair. I’m re-writing this one at the moment. This is an accepted work, but one that was never published. These things do happen.
 
I’ve added the new stories to the My Stories section of the blog. Rather embarrassingly I also noticed that two of my stories weren’t listed. So The Man On The Train, and A Quiet Retirement have now been added to my canon of work.
 
Take care.
 
Mike