I'm Penumbra's Rising Talent! Free Short Story - Currents

I have another treat for you all! As most of you know, I've been writing short stories for the past couple of years or so. I've always enjoyed writing short pieces, but since my rediscovery of the Writers of the Future contest and my hop back into the writing world fo' realz™, I decided I needed to seriously sit down and write a new speculative fiction short story every three months in order to submit to the contest every quarter. After all, what did I have to lose? 

Short stories are tough, man. My first couple of stories weren't the best. I was a bit rusty. Plus, you know, I've always been kinda wordy when it comes to writing (hence Captive by the Fog), so writing stuff that was, um, not wordy was hard. 

But I stuck with it, and I'm super glad to say that I've made progress! I've received two Honorable Mentions from the Writers of the Future contest now, which is pretty awesome. The contest is friggen' huge. Aside from submitting the stories to the contest, I've also been slowly getting in the swing of submitting my stories to other professional markets. I haven't had a professional sale yet, but I have had a near-miss, if you will. With benefits!

One of my favorite short stories, "Currents", was picked up by Penumbra as May's Rising Talent story. This is the same story I had quite a bit of help on from fellow WotFers, so I'm happy to have found a home for it. It also was thoroughly enjoyable to write and features one of my favorite things ever to write about-- descriptions of nature. Yep-- it's in the Oceans issue of Penumbra! Water's pretty awesome to describe. 

Okay, enough babbling. Go check the story out for yourself! "Currents" isn't in the May issue of Penumbra, but it is a free read on Penumbra's website. That means you're free to share it with all of your friends if you enjoy the piece.

Go take a look and tell me your thoughts! I start off the story with a brief, uh, babble-fest essay of sorts, as a warning. Just in case you haven't read enough yet. Or something like that.