Newest Story: Hooves and Horns

Shout-out to Opal Kingdom Press! They are such an awesome publishing company to work with. Professional, friendly, prompt. And I now have my second short story with them in their anthology series ExtraOrdinary Beasts.

You heard about my griffin story in Talons and Tails. Now I have a story called "A Beautiful Union" featuring both a unicorn and a centaur in Hooves and Horns (https://books2read.com/hooves-and-horns). There's a whole, funny story for its inspiration...but you'll have to read it in the anthology because the inspiration is actually the punchline to the whole thing. Everything else is built on top of it. The basic premise involves a marriage between a centaur prince and a unicorn princess and how they work to build that alliance.

There's another funny story about how it was written, and that one I can share here. I'd had another story idea before I was inspired with this one. My original intention was to write both, and then choose the stronger of the two to send in. However, time slipped away, and this story stuck in my head so firmly, I can't even remember what the other idea was.

Anyway, I wrote the story and received some (mixed) feedback from my critique group--rightly so. I'd tried to write a romance, not my strongest genre, and they told me that actually leaning away from the "romantic" elements and into the other storylines would make it a stronger story. That didn't mean the romance was dead, but the story beats and emphasis shifted.

They were right. It did make for a stronger story. They also suggested some other tweaks to improve the credibility of the story. And as usual, they were exactly right. The problem was, I was already nudging the high end of the word count limit...or so I thought. I cut and sliced a lot of things in order to add a little bit of their recommendations.

I patted myself on the back as I prepared to submit the story two days before the deadline. I pulled up the submission guidelines and re-read them...and panicked. In my head, the request was 3000-5000 words, which is a typical length for a short story submission. That's what I'd worked toward, eeking it just under the upper limit. But my re-read revealed that the request was actually 6000-10,000 words, making my story actually too short.

In a panic, I reached out to the editor for advice (not a typical practice, but as we had a personal connection before my first story, and she knew the quality of my work, I thought it was worth the risk). She didn't get back to me right away, and as the deadline quickly approached, I further panicked. And I just started writing furiously.

I re-integrated some of the things I had cut and fleshed out some of the other suggestions from my critique group. Eventually I got it to a healthy number above the minimum word count.

At that point, the editor reached back out and said to send what I had, and her consideration would mostly be based upon the other entries she received. I replied that I'd already beefed it up, but if she liked the story and felt there was too much fluff, I clearly had a range of story lengths to work with.

When I received my contract offer, she included some of the most complimentary notes I've ever received. She told me how much she liked the sweetness of the story as it developed. That really affected me because that was the impact I really wanted, but I'd also leaned away from the "romance," so I wasn't quite sure how it would hit a reader. And on top of all of that, when I sat down to review her edits, there were minimal suggestions. So few so that I even confirmed I received the right document.

Anyway, all of this being said, I'm excited to share this story with the world. And I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.