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The Legendary have printed another story of mine:

The Sonora Home for Wayward Girls

Which will be archived here when the new issue is no longer new.

I really like this one. It's short and bitter.

Show Me Your Lits

Well, after that paean to Scrawl, it's only fitting that my other online writing love gets a little bit of the same treatment, especially considering I have another story up now which started its life there. Show Me Your Lits is a wonderful, wonderful place. Its focus is on inspiration, and helping kickstart ideas an impetus to write. Every week, there's a flash challenge, where you access a prompt and then have ninety minutes to write a piece inspired by it. Everybody posts their story anonymously, and everyone comments on each others stories and votes on their favourite. It's not really very competitive -- it's a hell of a lot of fun, and it has inspired me to write some of my best stuff, and vastly improved me as a writer, as well as giving me the occasional ego boost.

And now, the piece I wrote which got me my first ever win there, Neuroplasticine, has been published by Grey Sparrow Journal.

Thanks, Lits. Thanks in particular to Errid, who runs it, and is one of the most supportive people I know, and who very early on trusted me enough to make me a moderator there.

Scrawl

Another piece of mine has gone up, and it's a piece which owes everything to Scrawl. Scrawl is a place I owe a hell of a lot to, in writing terms. When I decided I wanted to pick it back up, the course I took gave me legs, but Scrawl gave me wings. It's a raucous place, and I've gotten into some duels there, but inspiration, beauty and many good things seep up between the cracks.

My best stories have come from the lovely Katie's flash competitions on there, including this one. Story Garden is an irregular collection of choice pieces from the site, which is a writer's hang-out with bells on. I recommend it to any writer, and I recommend The Story Garden to any reader. I've linked to my story, but it's well worth exploring the whole thing:

'Prologue' in Scrawl: The Story Garden 8

Married

I'm not one to get very nervous in front of crowds; it's what I do for a living. So I stood calmly in the registry office, waiting first for the guests, then for my bride. I'd looked in the mirror on the way in; the suit looked good, chocolate and cream. I was ready.

Wasn't I?

People started to come in. Briony's brother, Aaron, who had agreed to be an usher, although he didn't know many of family by sight, and I had to help direct people to their seats. Greeting everyone as they came in diverted me, happily. Everyone was so smiley, and so pleased to see me, and by the time I'd completely lost count of how many cheeks I'd kissed and hands I'd shaken, suddenly the room was full, and -- well how about that, I was nervous after all. Maybe just a little.

Then the waiting.

The song coming on meant that Briony was outside the door, ready to come in. The song was 'Go', the cover, by Sparklehorse and the Flaming Lips, and suddenly, within the first few bars, all the meaning and the memories packed into that song, the reasons we'd chosen it, had me welling up, before she'd even entered the room. My view seemed to undergo one of those zoom effects where everything rushes away from you without moving, and the enormity of what I was about to do hit me almost as hard as the beauty.

And then the beauty walked in the door. I think Briony is beautiful first thing in the morning, with sleep in her eyes. I think she's beautiful every second of every day. But she's never looked more amazing than she did at that moment. The tears were still brimming, egged on by knowing, by being able to see, how nervous she was, and how she was still doing it anyway, walking towards me on her father's arm.

And so we were both nervous, all the way through the vows, all the way through the ceremony, until I got to kiss her, and she was my wife. I don't really remember the words. Everything that should be there was there, the vows, the rings, but the thing that was most important was that she was there. And that she would be there, now, 'til death do us part.

We eased up when the comedy effect of using a fake pen to pose for signing the register photos kicked in. Suddenly we were laughing, and she relaxed, and smiled, and the grin that I thought couldn't get any wider on my face did just that (and stayed that way for the rest of the day). Looking out into the sea of smiling faces was beautiful.

Music is really important to me, and we spent a long time choosing our songs to walk in and out to. Walking back down the aisle to the strains of 'The First Day of my Life', it just seemed so perfect, so right. Again, a song charged with meaning for both of us, and the perfect start to being married. In theory, for a couple who've been together for four years and lived together for two, getting married shouldn't make a real difference to how you feel about each other and about the relationship. And in a way it hasn't, because I couldn't have loved her any more than I already did. But at that moment, and every day since, I have felt different. I have felt, more definitely, and more assuredly, a team, part of a whole, with her, and happier about it than I've been ab out anything.

The rest of the day was a blur. I couldn't really describe it all in detail if I tried, and certainly not in sequence. The sunshine was glorious. The food was wonderful. The venue... it's stunning, remarkable - a 13th century tithe barn, the restoration of which has won a number of awards, and the perfect backdrop to a beautiful, auspicious, day. There were chats, there were photos, there were plenty of drinks... there were some fabulous speeches; Giles, her Dad made us feel ten feet tall, and my best man brought me down to size again in a very funny fashion. I even managed my speech, with no script, as well as I could have expected. We circulated, the string quartet played... a lot of the evening we spent talking to different people, and the whole thing was charged with some kind of magical glow. And every so often, I'd turn, to see her there, across the room, or at my side, looking back at me, and smiling, or oblivious, and smiling. And it still sends shivers down my spine. It was so amazing to be there, with all these people I care about, all so happy to see us happy. I've never felt a vibe like it.

the only thing that went wrong was that it ended. But then we went back to the hotel, and from there, the next day, to the lakes.

A week and a half later, I'm still pinching myself. My wife is more than I could have dreamed of in a partner, for life, and my wedding day was more than I could have dreamed of in an occasion. I wasn't ready. But then, who is?

More Stories Published

Still not really sure what I'm using this blog for, but it's been awhile since updating, so there are two key things I am definitely going to put on here. I'll do the easy one first.

I've had some more pieces published. I went through a phase of writing lots of flash, mainly through www.showmeyourlits.com and the weekly flash competition there, and submitting it to as many online 'zines as I could. And I've had a few acceptances, some of which have gone live:

'Spelling Bee' was published in Poor Mojo's:

http://www.poormojo.org/cgi-bin/gennie.pl?Fiction+444+bi

'Potential Energy' was published in The Foundling Review:

http://www.foundlingreview.com/July2009Issue4Pearce.html

'The Pier at the End of the World' was published in Bewildering Stories:

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue349/pier_end.html

I've had a number of other acceptances, which have made me very happy, but they're all pending publication. Of the above pieces, I'm probably most fond of the last - it was my first stab at writing again after a long hiatus, and I love the main character.

Old Hand

Ok, so now I am an old hand at this. I now have two pieces published, thanks again to The Legendary. It seems to be a good fit. Perhaps because they like something a little sleazy, with a short sharp shock in there somewhere, and tight. I aim for all those things, mostly.

So now I'm getting down to the submissions business proper. I'm treating this more as an exploration. I get the feeling that there is a massive machine. I can hear it clunking and whirring. It involves a lot of people writing and reading each other's work, but it seems as if sometimes it may be distanced from a wider audience. I want to see what I can get here, see where it takes me.

At the moment, though, I'm just getting rejections.

Perspiration...

My new story, 'Letting Go' is here:

http://www.downdirtyword.com/fictionpage.html

And will be archived here, along with the first piece they accepted, 'God Bless':

http://www.downdirtyword.com/authors/terrypearce.html

Published

So, I keep wanting to make out that I'm an old hand at this writing lark.

The truth is, it's something I've known I could do passably for a long time, but I've done nothing about it. A girl I used to write love letters to used to tell me I should be a writer. She was the kind of person who only made compliments when they were very specific, and true. I write in my job, for comprehension rather than beauty, but I write.

But it's nothing I've ever gotten much done with. I've always had a problem sticking with stuff. The shock of the new rarely has aftershocks with me.

This year the brand is having a major overhaul.

This year I'm getting married.

This year I'm getting my head down and getting out of debt.

This year I'm straight and sober.

This year I'm writing.

And now I've been published. So any attempts to make out like I've always been doing this are blown out of the water as I say, as a writer and somebody who chooses their words carefully, ensuring that what is communicated is exactly what was intended:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks and props to:

The Legendary