Short Story Writing: Schedule & Plan

When I decided to concentrate on writing this year, I set a monthly schedule of three weeks on the novel and one week to write a short story. I had not written a short story in ages. It was scary.

I have always kept files of story ideas and half written scenes and character descriptions but none of them grabbed my imagination. A little over a year prior my father had passed away and I had gone to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to see him one last time. My father and I had never been close. I hadn’t wanted to make the trip but decided to go anyway.

The entire journey turned out to be surreal. It was a real life, ready made Lifetime Channel movie of the week. I decided I would write it up as my first short story. The plot was there, I knew all the characters, it was perfect. I wrote it pretty much as I remembered it. Now, if facts were changed or scrambled in the move from short term memory to long term memory, I don’t know…

As of this writing ‘Eastern Shore’ has been submitted to and rejected by The Sun, Three Penny Review and Carve Magazine.  The rejection from The Sun came in about a month and a half. Three Penny Review wastes no time, they throw it back in less than 48 hours. Carve took about two months. Currently ES is in submission to Ploughshares. I hope to hear back from them in September. If Ploughshares sends back the story it will be the fourth rejection and I will self publish.

I keep track of submissions in two ways. I created an Excel spreadsheet with columns for each short story and the magazines to which it has been submitted. I also have columns with a calendar tracking when I should hear back from the submissions. I have a color system where black indicates in submission, red indicates rejection, and blue means accepted for publication. So far there is no blue on the graph.

So it goes.

Below is an except from ‘Eastern Shore.’ I will edit this post when the story is either published or becomes available for purchase. Happy to announce 'Eastern Shore' will be published in Volume II of Panther City Review!  

Eastern Shore

By Mark A. Nobles

The desk was littered with a myriad of no longer sticky, sticky notes, scribbled up scraps of paper and several pocket sized composition notebooks in varying conditions of tatter. A pearl white coffee mug splotched with dribs of coffee sat on a cork coaster, which sat on a scrawled over desk calendar still showing October of last year.

I worked away on the upcoming festival with an open excel grid of the schedule, two press releases and an open email to volunteers all fighting for room on the computer screen. My hands clickity-clacked across the keyboard. The cell phone rang.

It was early on a Sunday morning and my phone never rang on the weekend unless one of the girls was in need. I knew that was not the case as the oldest was at work and the youngest was in her room, fifteen feet away. She kept a teenager sleep schedule. I kept a feed and clothe a teenager work schedule.

The display read Unknown Caller and the area code was unfamiliar. I never answer unknown calls.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello, it’s Jo Ann.” Jo Ann is my dad’s second wife of some forty plus years. They married shortly (my mom said too shortly) after my parent’s divorce when I was thirteen.  Junior high, seventh grade, 1973, platform shoes, the Cisco Kid was a friend of mine and Nixon had one foot out the door.

“They took your father to the hospital last night,” Jo Ann continued in her deep south, West Virginia accent. As a Texan, that drawl was as unfamiliar and unsettling to me as the rapid cadence of a New Jersey car salesman. I never put my finger on why.

“They said he prob’ly wouldn’t be coming home. I can’t believe I just said that out loud.” The former Jo Ann said to me, the latter she said more to herself. 

“Well, shit.” I thought.

“Oh, dear.” I said.

“You really must come up as soon as you can.”

Besides being cold to me the few times we had ever shared air, the thing I liked least about Jo Ann, when I was a teenager, was how she ordered me, and everyone really, as if she were Joseph Smith and each word out of her mouth rose directly from Urim and Thumm and was to be followed or carried out unconditionally.
I usually took her words with the same skepticism as I took Smith and his translation. 
“Let me see what I can do,” I stumbled. “The festival is just over a month away. I’m swamped.” This was clearly a totally unacceptable reply when you are asked to go to your dad’s death bed. I knew this. 
“You simply must.”
I was unprepared for this conversation and had one goal only. Hang up and end it. Deal with the consequences later. 
“Let me see what I can do, Jo Ann. I will call you back shortly.” There was, I think, more to the conversation but blessed little and I was soon sitting at my desk. 
Thought less. 
After a beat or two the girlfriend walked in from the kitchen. The house we live in is small; two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and a somewhat large living area. My desk is in one corner of the living area just sitting out in the open. She did not have to eavesdrop to hear every word of the phone call. Acoustically speaking, there was simply no way to avoid overhearing. 
“When do you want to go?”
“I don’t know that I am going.”
“You have to go.”
“Hell I do.”
She sighed heavily; this was usually a reliable sign I was about to lose an argument. 
“You aren’t going for you. You’re going for him,” she said. “You have the opportunity to send the man off in peace.”
I’m pretty sure I slumped in my chair. I’m very sure I’m o’fer in arguments with this woman. It is hard to work up a mad about it however, as I lose because I am seemingly always in the wrong. The girlfriend picks her battles carefully.
She walked over, kissed the back of my neck tenderly, squeezed my shoulder and walked to the bathroom. I was left to sit and stew.