Sanctuary with Strings Attached

If you are in the mood for a crazy twisted tale - check out "Sanctuary with Strings Attached" - live at Flashes in the Dark.

I'm not sure where the story came from in my mind, but I do remember having fun writing it - it played out like a Scooby Doo episode sort of thing in my head -if that gives you any clues :)

Sanctuary with Strings Attached

My Stepmother is a Harpy

New story up at Static Movement. In this story - the "stepmother" or "harpy" represents depression. I used some of the things I learned about Dante's harpies from his poems and combined it with the Greek mythology legends of harpies - then used it as a metaphor for depression. Anyway, it is complicated, but hopefully when you read the story - it will just read "easy".

I really appreciate Chris Bartholomew publishing this story. She read it on zoetrope and responded favorably - I felt like she "got it" and so I sent it to her and there you have it. She accepted it and now my story has a home.

This is a long one - almost 5,000 words- just so you know :)

My Stepmother is a Harpy

Nanowrimo Day #2

3,500 words - on Day #2 of Nanowrimo - so far so good. I'm not reading over what I've written until I cross the finish line, otherwise I'll be slowed down by the edit urge and next thing you know - I will lose momentum and passion for the story.

Side Note:

I have 5 submissions pending response. FIVE! that's it? Five?

I need to submit some stories and poems. If I've been rejected by a market three times, I rarely summon the courage to submit there again. Then I discover other writers are more persistent and don't bat an eye at mutliple rejections and eventually - they get an acceptance. Me, I wimp out - tell myself, "they don't like my writing - so why submit to them again?" WRONG - that particular story may not have been right for the issue they were reading for and I need to toughen up and be more persistent. Yeah, I'm saying it aloud - trying to convince myself.

Listen, Paula - your work stands a chance of being accepted -if you submit it, but it stands no if you leave it on your hard-drive and never send it out.

Here I sit with five pending submissions and some of my friends have 50-75 pending submissions. I'm so slack or lacking in confidence - or whatever it is that is holding me back.

(I feel like I've just hung my granny panties on the line for y'all to see)

Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo started TODAY and I managed to write just under 2,000 words. That's a good start, now to keep it up! I think I can - I think I can - I KNOW I can :)

Life and Death of a Pumpkin

Click "read more" to see video

Kristin Fouquet

You simply MUST check out the book cover Kristin did - she is an amazing artist/photographer. Check out some of her other stuff when you get to her page too. The cover I am truly digging is here

Leaver her a comment - give her some applause - she's AWESOME!

Two Treats on Halloween

Yay! What an awesome day. I just found out I have a poem posted on Literary Tonic and a story up at SNM ...TODAY...hooray!

Okay - so, the poem is: Sax Named Pegasus - first published at Word Riot. The story is: Opium Fingers - a Poe inspired piece prompted by Liquid Imagination's own John Arther Miller - aka JAM.

I'm excited. Things come in waves, ya know? I went a long stretch with nothing new posted - then wham a wave of one thing after the other. I like the one thing after the other better, for the record :)

Opium Fingers

Sax Named Pegasus

Frog in the Rein

Another strange little piece inspired by a writing prompt on zoetrope. It's a twisted fairy-tale-ish surreal dream. Thanks again, ES Wynn!

Enjoy: Frog in the Rein

Totsicle

Evil man in the ice cream van...

Creepy twitter zine story at Thaumatrope

October 29th

Horror Halloween

New story up at MicroHorror - it is a Halloween contest entry. Several of my zoetrope buddies are there as well: AJ Brown, John Arthur Miller, Bob Eccles, and Graeme Reynolds. Each story is under 666 words. Check it out:

http://www.microhorror.com/microhorror/author/paula-ray/dog-face/

Rusty Nail

New piece up at Wigleaf. Also a postcard on the home page. Thank you, Scott Garson - you're the best!

Rusty Nail

Weirdyear

New piece up at Weirdyear.com - It was inspired by a writing prompt in the flash factory of zoetrope. I appreciate E.S. Wynn for giving this odd little piece a home.

Turtle Summer

Interview with A.J. Brown

I recently posted an interview with the kind and dedicated A.J. Brown. I hope you will check it out and drop him a line. He is a great writer and a good person. Interview with AJ Brown

Hello again

Sorry I've neglected you. I've taken a break from blogging for a while and during that time, I've been studying the art of writing on a daily basis and honing my craft through workshopping sites and so forth.


I'd like to revamp my blogging experience and have quite a few ideas running around in my head about how I'd like to go about doing so. Just so you know, you may find Musical Pencil becomes the cover page for several other blogging endeavors such as Backspace Junkie, In Graved Tales, and Pj's Jukebox. I'm just beginning to pull things together for the various sites, but today I opened up Back Space Junkie for anyone interested -

here is the link

Back Space Junkie

Inheritance

New poem up at Mirror Magazine Online. It is under one of the seven deadly sin headings, greed. This magazine was promoted by a friend on Zoetrope, Cairol Worley. She announced they were seeking deadly sin submissions and I fired a poem off. Now, I see the mag and notice many names of fellow writers I respect and I'm overjoyed to share pages with them: John Mannone, Ethal Rohan, Chris Bartholomew, and many more.

I hope you enjoy this one:
http://mirror-magazine.com/

Asian Girl Pin

New story up at Linnet's Wing - an Irish zine on the version of moving from online to print publications - I believe I may be able to purchase this one and it is filled with memorable work by some many writers I've become aquainted with through various writing communities. There is John Mannone, Stan Long and a long list of others. I hope you enjoy this beautiful issue. This is the debut of my first venture into creative non-fiction and I'm thrilled it's found a home in such a gorgeous zine.

http://www.thelinnetswings.net/?stn=7221&pageno=31

Flash #6 Prompt