Ethereal Tales provides what they call, Sneaky Peaks. Previews of the content for the next issue and it just went live yesterday. Here is the excerpt used for
Bleeding Apple:
"Go to hell,” she says, “maybe then you'll understand.”
His eyes fill with tears. “Maybe I don't want to understand.”
There's a knife lying next to her moon face. Seven inches, gleaming steel. His fingers around the black handle, stiff and cold. Eyes closed, words of encouragement whispering out of her barely moving, pale sapphire mouth. Is it his resolve that's stiffening even more or his fingers? He touches her long hair with the tip of the blade, and it gets caught. She shouldn't have used such cheap black hair dye. He sighs, his brow creasing into a worried frown.
"Now, for me,” she whispers urgently.
He looks at the knife through a blur and his tears drop on her breasts. He moves the knife to her thin throat and presses down. Blood. Hot and steaming, explodes into his eyes, up his nose, into his screaming mouth, screaming, too much blood, screaming black.
On the first morning of Peter's death, he didn't wake with a gasp or a shout. He only had an overwhelming feeling of resentment. He turned his head to the nightstand. The alarm clock should have woken him up. It would have if Peter had set it properly, which he never did. He bought the small red alarm clock on the advice of a co-worker. An overpriced device from Tokyo, he was positive he spent far too much money on the damned thing. He still hadn't figured out all of the functions and, of course, its failure was always stupidly obvious. He set it on snooze instead of buzzer. He set it on six p.m. instead of six a.m. He stared at the empty spot next to him on the bed. His wife hadn't returned from the hospital, he realized as the early morning fog faded. Yes, the alarm should have woken him up. Inanimate objects were so uncooperative.
This isn't the excerpt I'm posting on Oct 31, that will be something different ;)
And now for the really big announcement! I was drafting a new short story the other night and I got an idea. I thought to myself, wouldn't it be interesting to follow a writer from conception until publication? So, starting the beginning of November, I'm posting every detail of this experiment. Watch as I pull my hair out and tortured myself as I write the story, then do what I can to get it published. I'm doing this because I want to give people the chance to see all the work involved. Creative writing really isn't as easy as it looks. But for me, it's all worth :)
I have a bit of an advantage, truth be told. I wrote a version of this story I have in mind about 2 years ago, but I put it on the backburner because it just didn't feel ready. Now I'm ready. It needs a major rewrite and I'm actually quite excited about this. I love the idea for the story, and now I feel I'm ready to do it justice.
With a fair bit of work and a whole lot of luck, I just might get this one published :)
