Hey all, it has been a while since I last posted on this blog. I just wanted to blog about what I have in the works.

As I have announced on my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/martinrustwriter), I have submitted “Four Firewoods” and “Obsidian” to potential publishers. “Four Firewoods” is a piece of literary fiction about a woman struggling with social relationships in a small town while “Obsidian” is a flash fiction story (less than 1000 words) about a tense interaction between a man and a woman at a Seattle opera house. While I would love to post samples of these stories on my blog or Facebook, doing so could jeopardize publication for either story. That bums me out a bit as I am very proud of these two stories.

Recently, I have taken an interest in working on flash fiction (any story under 1000 words). It presents a different challenge than the traditional short story. How do I tell a complete story in such a small number of words? What words or sentences do I need to cut in order to get under that 1000 word limit? Will my audience understand these characters and this plot without more context given?

Thankfully, some stories are meant to be told in such a way. Some stories take 500 words, or 1000, while others need a bit more space to grow. “Four Firewoods” is around 4400 words while “Obsidian” comes in at around 850. Yet both of these stories are early highlights of my young writing career and I love them both equally.

Right now, and in the next week or two, I am working on some incredibly brief stories. Like less-than-300-words-brief. I have already written 1 story, a semi-autobiographical piece titled “The Sun Around Angel Wings.” Giving the premise might be giving too much (as the story is only 280 words or so), but the central theme of it is built-up regret.

The reason why I am writing such short flash fiction is so that I can enter a contest for NANO Fiction. I encourage you to check it out for yourself: http://nanofiction.org/submit.

This is exciting for me. I have never entered my work in a contest before. So here’s to venturing into new territory.

Anyway, that is what is going on with me. If you have any comments or questions, don’t hesitate to let me know.