On this journey to cross over as a writer, there have been manic high’s and crushing low’s, sometimes, like yesterday in the space of twelve hours. Last night, Nighttrain declined my short story CROTCHWATCHERS, the third journal to pass on what I thought was one of my strongest pieces. There’s got to be a home for this story based on the title alone, right? I went through my usual transmogrification of despair, displaced rage (in the form of angry, self-destructive Wii tennis) and a fair amount of self-pitying.
Then this morning, I casually checked my e-mail and was greeted by Chroma Journal’s review of Ganymede Stories One. There’s me and my story THE VAIN PRINCE mentioned in the very first paragraph!!
Reviewer Marc Bridle calls the piece “an adorably amusing gay fairytale. Peters’ anti-hero Adalbert is rather like a queer Turandot, and his prose swaggers along like a drunken queen in a nightclub, the very antithesis of what a fairytale should be.”
Ok, so I had to look up Turandot. She’s a princess in a Puccini opera who faces a line of suitors who must answer a riddle to win her hand in marriage (or die if they get the answer wrong). Didn’t realize I was channeling that story, but Holy Bejezzus! – I was singled out in the review amidst all of the talented contributors in the anthology. I’m feeling humbled but frickin’ fantastic! You can read the full review as well as a piece by Rainbow Reviews here.
Now the weekly progress report. I reached 52K in When the Fallen Angels Fly. Over the weekend, I wrote a new scene where Richard re-visits his afterlife, which has transformed into something like Super Paradise Beach in Mykonos. Now I’m working on a slowly-developing romantic subplot between Richard and Rafi. Things are vague, plutonic and, for Richard, excruciatingly ambivalent.