I’ve just received news my second story has been accepted for publication with Afterburn SF magazine. Another smaller magazine but another step in the right direction. My hope is if I publish enough stories in these smaller mags, I can step up to the next level (pro rates) and then an agent.
The story accepted is Five Crates of DragonRoot and it details Nathaniel’s ill-advised plan to steal, well, five crates of DragonRoot from the Pariahs. Of course, everything goes wrong (who would think that feeding his camels a known hallucinogen would be bad?).
This was originally a concept work. This was the birth of Nathaniel and I wanted to see what would happen in a high-stress situation and was meant only for me. But I liked it (and the character) so much it then became the prologue of my novel (Curse of the Black Swan), then the first chapter, then was dropped altogether.
So it became a short story. And my second story scheduled for publication.