Published: "Danny"

My story "Danny" appears in the just-published anthology Shotgun Honey Presents: Locked and Loaded (Both Barrels) (Volume 3). Learn more here.

Nine

I completed and submitted my ninth short story of the year this evening. This one's a 4,600-word confession I started March 1, 2011.

Free Today

In celebration of Earth Day, Fifty Shades of Green, an anthology of erotic gardening stories that contains my story "Seed," is free for Kindle. Get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Green-Rebekah/dp/B00MLEFNLY/ref=sr_1_3_twi_2_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1429622078&sr=8-3&keywords=fifty+shades+of+green

Eight

I completed and submitted my eighth short story of the year this afternoon. This one's a 4,800-word confession I started writing March 26, 2010.

10, 11

My 10th and 11th acceptances of the year were sitting in my inbox when I awoke this morning.

9

I received my 9th acceptance of the year this afternoon.

Seven

I just finished and submitted my seventh short story of the year, a 2,900-word confession I started writing August 16, 2012.

Six

Earlier this evening I finished and submitted a 5,400-word confession I started writing April 5, 2013.

A matter of style

Crime fiction, historical fiction, and other fiction that has characters reading newspaper articles as part of the story's plot run a high risk of making stylistic errors that can bounce a knowledgeable reader out of the story, much like a affixing a silencer to a revolver bounces out readers familiar with firearms.

Newspaper articles are typically written to conform to the dictates of the Associated Press Stylebook. Therefore, the author and the copyeditor should put down their copy of The Chicago Manual of Style when writing and editing sections of a story purported to be newspaper articles.

For example, a novel I am currently reading quotes a fictitious newspaper article from 2004 using the phrase "near Conroe, TX," immediately signaling to an astute reader that no real newspaper article is being quoted.

Texas is one of eight state names never abbreviated in a newspaper article, and no properly written newspaper article uses the two-letter USPS state postal code to refer to a state unless it is part of a complete mailing address that includes a ZIP code.

A writer who has never been a journalist might not know this, but no good copyeditor should be excused for allowing this error to pass into print. A good copyeditor knows which stylebook to follow and when.