A quiet seethe – and thoughts on mist after a drought

My flash fiction piece, “A quiet seethe,” was published today by 50 give or take, an emailed micro-fiction publication from Vine Leaves Press.  I’m so happy to see my little vignette making its way out into the world!  The original version of this story arose in a workshop with Grant Faulkner, the prompt a painting by Edward Hopper. I tried to capture a midcentury feel of marital unhappiness and a surpressed longing for something better, realer, more passionately engaged.  The story will also appear in print in the annual anthology from Vine Leaves Press, later this year.

Seeing my work in press again, being able to forward the email to friends and say, “look at this!” — it feels good.  I was going to say it feels like water after a drought, but maybe more like mist?  I find myself shrinking the news, “it’s only a 50-word story,” or “it came out of a workshop,” as if that means it is any less mine. I wrote something. An editor liked it. It was published. Some people probably read it. That’s good!

As a writer who hasn’t published a lot, and who doesn’t write every day, and who doesn’t always like what I write, I seem to need some outside confirmation that I really am a writer. Which is silly. A writer is someone who writes. I write. Ergo… Whether published or not, whether widely-read or not, whether I feel like I’ve done my best work yet or not, I write. I want to keep writing. I want to keep sending work out. But even if none of it ever finds a publisher, I write. That should be enough.

Here’s the story, as I said, originally published in 50 give or take, #1079, by Vine Leaves Press: