Sunday Links: September 18, 2011 Edition

Time to revisit the past week. It's seen me dive into writing a novel in addition to continuing work on my short fiction. The upcoming week has me a bit concerned. I'm on a good roll with my Seinfeld Chain (up to 17 days as of last night) but the next five days I'm going to be in training for my day job nearly 12 hours a day when you include transit time. Will I end up using a Mulligan? I hope not.

I came across some great blog posts around the internet this week, and I'm happy to present them past the jump. I hope everyone had a good week and has a great week this coming week.

Dissecting the Short Story: "Aisle 1047" by Jon Armstrong

This is the third of a series of posts (introduced here) which will appear once every two weeks on the blog. In this series, a short story from a recent major digest will be analyzed in detail, to see what we can learn about how the author approached creating the story.

Story:
"Aisle 1047" by Jon Armstrong
Published in:
September/October 2011 Fantasy and Science Fiction
Approximate Length:
5000 words
Presentation:
Third Person, Essentially Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story Preview & Goals Update

Every second Friday I post a new entry in my "Dissecting the Short Story" series. In this series I write up a detailed analysis of the story and what I think may have been some of the issues that the writer considered in crafting their story. The goal is to use this analysis to help better understand what makes stories which receive publication in the major digest magazines work for editors and readers.

This week's dissection will be of Jon Armstrong's "Aisle 1047." This one is a bit different from the last two stories I've analyzed, so it should be an interesting discussion. This story was published in the September/October 2011 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. So, if you have that issue and haven't read this story yet, now would be the time.

Also, I wanted to give a quick update on my September goals.

1) Write 15,000 words of fiction across at least four stories. - I've got the "at least four stories piece done" and I'm well on my way to 15,000 words.
2) Take all of my August stories which have not yet gone through Beta/critique through Beta/critique. - In progress. I've completed this for several stories and have several more where I've received feedback and need to use it for revisions. I do also have one August story that's awaiting a second draft before I send it out for critique.
3) Stick to my planned Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday blogging schedule. - On target.

I hope that everyone is having a good week. See you on Friday at the dissection!