It's a creepy little piece that starts with the line:
"My mother struggles against the white padded straps. Tying her to the bed is the only way I can stop her. The only way I can to travel beyond the borders she has drawn for me."
I wrote this story after my pal Cory Skerry saw that Ellen Datlow had a rare open call for an horror anthology that didn't have a theme.
Cory dared myself and another writer to see if we could pen stories that would make Datlow flinch. This was a difficult challenge because Datlow for those not in the know has been editing and winning awards for her work in horror, dark fantasy and SF since I was in high school. There was no way I was going to make it out of the slush to be selected by her but I was going to try.
I worked hard to make myself flinch.
As I expected, Datlow form rejected the story. I have no idea if she flinched but I somehow doubt it.
I have a lot of affection for this story even though I normally don't write horror. That's because Mothers and Daughters earned me my first good rejection from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Anyone who writes speculative fiction markets will tell you how hard it is to get a personal note from F&SF.
More importantly, the F&SF editor told me he liked what I was doing with the theme and liked the writing. This type of feedback is incredibly valuable because it helps you see the strengths and weaknesses in a story.
So I had some writer friends read it, including Cory, Langley Hyde, Spencer Ellsworth and others in our Bellingham posse of writers, and of course my dear friend and occasional collaborator Jude-Marie Green. They had things to say about teasing out the theme and ways to improve the story and questions the story raised but didn't answer.
As I tried to find ways to incorporate and then streamline the answers to Langley's questions about my worldbuilding, I stumbled on the idea of using second person outtakes to deliver exposition. Such a cool solution to many problems. I wish I could fix every story I had with second-person exposition nuggets.
Langley and Jude-Marie really got what I was focused on and they helped me see the theme and the ways others might interpret the theme. This helped me do as Cory suggests: Focus on the theme and trim away what isn't helping communicate that.
The version of Mothers and Daughters that sold was the sixth version since I first busted it out and sent it to Datlow in summer 2013.
In this day of insta-publishing on Amazon and Smashwords, it's good to remember that it takes time to sell to short fiction markets.
In late summer 2016, A&A was the 11th market I had sent Mothers and Daughters to. Several months later, I received an email that Mothers and Daughters had made it out of slush and was being held for additional consideration. In early 2018, Wendy sent me a contract. It appeared in pixels in late 2019. That's six years since I first drafted it and three years after I submitted it.
When I submitted the story to A&A, I worried it was too dark for the market and hoped for a good rejection. I've wanted to send a story to Wendy Delmater for years but didn't really have anything that I thought fit A&A and I wasn't sure this story would. I almost didn't send it but I figured, if it is rejected with feedback that is invaluable.
I'm so glad that my dark little story fit. And it reminds me of advice other editors have given me: Don't pre-reject; let the editor decide.
Some people might wonder why I was willing to wait so long to sell this story. Certainly I could have sent it to markets that paid less and have a faster consideration process. But selling a story is only part of the goal. (See I write short fiction and it will never pay the bills.)
For me, I've long wanted to sell a story to A&A. It's a Hugo-nominated semi-pro market that is often the online magazine where really amazing writers first appear in print/pixels. Wendy also works really hard to promote the stories she publishes and is considered a very good developmental editor.
The other thing I realized when working with Wendy and having a few conversations about my story is: She saw things in my story that I hadn't realized were there. That is also a mark of a really good editor.
Will I be a really amazing in the future? Who knows? What matters is I had the chance to work with Wendy. She's the type of editor I like to work with -- caring, committed and concerned with quality.
You decide if it was worth the wait: https://www.abyssapexzine.com/2019/09/mothers-and-daughters/