One of the wonderful things about Nanowrimo — aside from accomplishing such a large amount of writing in such a short period — is that I end the month very eager to turn my attention to short stories.

In fact, during November , I found my mind increasingly finding story ideas and beginning to develop them (undoubtedly in an attempt to avoid the novel I was working on, but nonetheless useful in the end).

Out of all of that, I have several stories I am alternating between at the moment. One is for a climate fiction short story contest with a deadline in January. I’ve been thinking about this one for a few weeks and my ideas are beginning to coalesce — so far, so good.

Another story was inspired by a couple of small things noticed on our recent day trip to Montreal — a car with multiple parking tickets under the windshield wiper, an art exhibition with several small rooms with video installations.

I am also intrigued by this submission call for an anthology of LGBTQIA fairy tales, as I enjoy both fairy tales and writing my own versions (as previously demonstrated).

I may also give the latest 3 Elements Review issue a try. I like the premise of it (having three specific words that must be included in your submission) and the current three words — measure, cleave, and sliver are intriguing (also, they use the Oxford comma, so there’s that, too).

Reading and watching more of the same this week.