End of Year Stats: Looking Back at a Year of Writing and Submitting

This was my first year of writing regularly. I made a schedule and managed to show up regularly to keep writing. In many ways it was a good distraction from everything, and it gave me something to work on in a world that feels out of control.

But it was also my first year of submitting to literary magazines! Before that I’d only participated in a handful of contests, but this year I was really dedicating myself to submitting. And it paid off, because I got published four times!

I submitted to 36 literary magazines, got 29 rejections and 2 acceptances (5 still pending). I submitted to 22 contests, got long listed once, shortlisted twice, and won first prize once.

My first (ever) publication was in Popshot Quarterly, my flash fiction piece Soil, which you can find online here.

My second was an old piece called Summer Sounds, which I had entered into the Reflex Fiction Spring contest, where it didn’t quite make the longlist. But they were kind enough to published it anyway. You can find it here.

My third was actually the first flash fiction piece I wrote ever. After many rewrites and a few rejections, Call of the View was published this October by The Cabinet of Heed, and you can find it here.

And my final publication of the year, and maybe the biggest surprise, was when I won the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest with my story Ice. It was also on the Weird Christmas podcast (voiced by me) and you can find both here.

I also posted several stories on this blog: The Old Man, Darlings, A Shadow Followed Me, Luck, Road Kill, Wanted: Dead or Alive and my creepy Christmas Advent series: The Snowpeople, Shortcut, The Wild Hunt and Regeneration.

All in all I’m really pleased with this year, writing wise.

Happy New Year, and may 2021 be less chaotic

xx Lotte

News | I Won 1st Prize in the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest!

This is so exciting! For the second year in a row I entered into the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest. I love Christmas, I love writing weird stuff, so this is perfect for me. Last year I didn’t make the honorable mentions, but this year I got an e-mail a couple of weeks ago that my story was among the final ones would be on the podcast!

I got to read my own story (you can find the podcast here, my story begins at 61:00) which was both cool and scary as I’m not a native speaker, but I think I did my best. I was already really happy with that!

But today the final results came in… and my story ‘Ice’ won first prize!!!

You can find it here together with 2nd prize winner and all the honorable mentions (all such great quality!) so please check out my story and all the other stories and the podcast and the rest of the Weird Christmas site. If you like dark folklore and strange Christmas things, I promise you’ll enjoy the podcast and the rest of the blog (I know I do).

And if you enjoy ‘Ice’, there are more creepy Christmas stories on here as well.

Okay that’s it.

*insert me doing a happy dance because I’m so excited*

Merry Christmas,

Lotte

Creepy Christmas Flash Fiction Advent | Regeneration

Regeneration

(348 words)

Christmas has come and gone. People are inside sleeping off their Christmas dinners, bundled up by the fire. There’s no one out in the cold night to see the old man limping through the dark carrying a big brown bag and a shovel.

After a while of searching, he drops his bag by a patch of recently disturbed earth. He pauses to catch his breath, making little clouds in the cold air, then he plunges his shovel into the ground.

For a long time, the man digs. Sweat drips from his brow down to his white beard. His muscles burn, his joints scream, his face is twisted in pain and exhaustion. He can feel places in his body where the corners are coming loose, where he’s too worn out. If only he can hold it together till he gets home. Just a little bit longer.

But he’s already had such a long night.

Finally, the shovel hits wood. The old man grits his teeth. Another few hard digs, and the coffin splinters open, exposing a fairly fresh dead body. He looks it over, mentally ticking off the ones already in his bottomless bag, guessing he has enough to last another year. He can go home. He whistles, long and low, and in the distance bells start ringing across the quiet graveyard.

The old man sighs deeply, looking up at the cold stars above. Everything hurts, and he is so, so tired.

It’s hard work, staying immortal. It used to be easier, when he could just snatch naughty children from their beds on his yearly round and no one would bat an eye. But it doesn’t work like that anymore.

He looks down again.

Still, it’s better than nothing.

With the last of his strength, groaning in pain, he wrestles the corpse into the bag, and climbs out of the grave.

The sleigh is already waiting for him, bells jingling gently. His bones creak and protest as he climbs on with the bag full of bodies, but he manages.

He flies away into the night, dreaming of new limbs.

---

~

Thank you for reading!

This story is part of my Creepy Christmas Advent tradition, where I post a creepy Christmas flash fiction piece every week in the weeks leading up to Christmas. This was the last story this year, but you can find more here and my other not Christmas themed stories here. Please comment and like and share if you enjoy any of my stories, it’s always really nice to see people like them 🙂

Merry Christmas

~

Creepy Christmas Flash Fiction Advent | The Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt

(349 words)

He smiled. The sleigh was ready.

All the reindeer were in position, their harnesses recently polished, their thick coats combed only this morning. The front seat was lined with soft pillows and in the back a big bag was waiting to be filled. But the thing he prized most were the little sleigh bells hanging on a string all around the edge of the sleigh.

The bells were a relatively recent addition but he liked them very much. They had become his signature, really. Before he had them, his arrival was much less recognizable. He’d heard it be described as a flock of geese, as a wild magical wind. Some even believed it was a party of old gods out hunting on a cold midwinter night.

The thought made him chuckle. It was only him, after all.

He wouldn’t really call it a hunt, either. It was more of a sport. Admittedly, it was always nice to have the pantry well stocked for the long North pole winters, but it wasn’t really about that.

What he loved was the cold air on his face, his heart beating with the thrill of it all, the little screams from below.

He took one of the little silver bells and shook it gently. A high note rang out through the night.

What terror they must feel when they hear the bells ringing, when the sleigh’s shadow falls over them. What horror must fill them as they run away on their little legs, as he chases them down, getting closer and closer, till he can reach out and break their tiny, delicate necks with just one gloved hand.

He shivered with anticipation.

The reindeer stomped their hooves, waking him up from his reveries. Little clouds rose from their large noses as they shook their heads, muscles quivering, growling with impatience. They were already looking forward to their share.

‘Ho, ho, ho,’ he laughed at the eager animals.

They were right, it was time to set out. He climbed on and shook the reins. The sleigh rose up into the dark night, bells ringing.

---

~

Thank you for reading!

The Wild Hunt is inspired by a mythological phenomenon, called, you guessed it, the Wild Hunt. It’s often described as a group of old gods or ghosts out on a hunt, making a bunch of noise. I thought it’d be interesting to pare it with the Santa sleigh myth. You can read more about this piece of folklore here. This story is part of my now annual tradition of posting creepy Christmas flash fiction in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Next Sunday will be the last one, but you can find the ones from this and last year here and my other not Christmas themed stories here. Follow this blog or my twitter for updates!

Merry Christmas

~

Creepy Christmas Flash Fiction Advent | Shortcut

Shortcut

(294 words)

A growl in the distance.

I hold my breath. Strain my eyes to see in the pitch black. Listen.

The sound moves away.

I take a deep breath and continue my search, looking for openings in the darkness, my boots soundless in this strange space.

I’ve been using these tunnels for centuries. They’re non-places, at the edges of worlds, in between realities. The sewers of the multiverse.

The perfect shortcut.

At least, they were.

I still remember the day I figured it out. How to make portals between here and there, how to jump through time and space to travel impossible distances within seconds. Finally I could spread festive joy across the whole world in just one night.

Another growl, closer this time. I freeze.

Something passes by, so close, I can almost feel it brushing against me.

Then it’s gone.

I’m shaking, my heart pounding in my chest, but I force myself to continue through the dark tunnel.

For so long, it had worked perfectly. I was cautious at first, but over time, I grew lazy. There never seemed to be anything in here. I started to leave the portals open behind me, in chimneys, attics, alley ways. Well-worn paths waiting for the next year. It always seemed safe.

Till this Christmas.

The attack came from the dark. Within seconds, all eight screaming reindeer were shred to pieces. I fled into the tunnels, not waiting to see what they were. Who knows what’s been dumped in these tunnels, allowed to grow strong and hungry.

I’ve been wandering since then, searching the darkness. Hurrying to find and close the portals I made before it’s too late. If it isn’t already.

Whatever they are, they’ve tasted meat now.

And they know where it came from.

---

~

Thank you for reading!

So I’m doing Creepy Christmas Advent again this year, where I post a creepy Christmas flash fiction piece every week in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I hope you enjoyed this second piece! If you did you can find more (and the ones from last year) here and my other not Christmas themed stories here. There are a few more to come this December so keep your eyes open, follow this blog or my twitter for updates!

Merry Christmas

~

Creepy Christmas Flash Fiction Advent | The Snowpeople

The Snowpeople

(333 words)

It was cute, at first.

The neighborhood children had spent all day building snowmen, cute sculptures with big white bellies, friendly button eyes, thin twigs for arms. At night, they glowed orange in the light of the streetlights, one or two of them in front of almost every house on our block. Bright lights flickered in the windows, snow kept gently falling. It looked like a Christmas card.

But the next morning, there were more.

News | New Publication; ‘Call of the View’ in The Cabinet of Heed

Here I am again, after some months of silence, with some cool news! Another story of mine has been published just yesterday, and I’m super excited about it.

Call of the View was the first flash fiction piece I wrote ever, for an exercise in a creative writing course I was taking, where the prompt was ‘write a full story in 350 words where someone is uncomfortable.’ It was then that I fell in love with this super short format. And although it has gone through many, many rewrites and became somewhat longer, it’s in essence still the same story.

I’m really thrilled that The Cabinet of Heed decided to publish it, and you can now read it here 🙂 Please do, and if you liked it, please tell me and share it with everyone you know 😀

Happy October!

Cheers,

Lotte

Flash Fiction | Soil

Soil

(484 words)

Soil is an absolute marvel.

I plunge my shovel into the forest floor, the smell of rot climbing up to me.
           
Soil is nature’s magic. Nature’s recycling bin. Nature’s way of living a waste-free life, something we could all learn from in this day and age.
           
I dig deeper, through the thick layer of leaves of years past, not yet decayed but well on their way, till I hit the harder ground.

Flash Fiction | Wanted, Dead or Alive

Wanted, Dead or Alive

(997 words)

I unfold the poster again.
           
John Singer, it says in big black letters, wanted dead or alive, for multiple bank robberies, murder and theft. Reward, $500. Beneath the letters is a picture of a man, tall, blond, grinning in a way I would never grin.
           
I spit on the ground. Damn them for slandering my name and face all over the country.
           
From the alley’s shadows, I look up at the saloon’s second story window, where the two bastards have rented a room. Years of searching. Years of rumors and cold trails. But I found them, finally, a few months ago. They wore different faces then, but I recognized their horses. The horses they’d stolen from me and my buddy.
           
After they’d killed him.

Flash Fiction | Road Kill

Road Kill

(357 words)

I hit the brakes.

The car stopped with a shock, almost sending me flying through the windshield. With shaking hands, I turned the engine off, the sudden silence deafening.

I gave myself a moment. A moment for my heart to stop hammering in my chest, for my breathing to slow down. Then I got out.

It was dusk already, as night falls early on lonely forest roads. The weather was warm and wet, mist still clinging between the trees. I hadn’t seen it coming from the undergrowth, hadn’t seen it till it was right in my headlights. Till it was too late.