TatTle – #7
The monthly newsletter from Tall and Tiny Tales
G’day!
I hope this first day of February finds you well, wherever in the world you may be.
🤔💭 Ponderings and ruminations
When I was setting up my Substack storyletter a year ago I gave a lot of thought to why I was doing it and what I wanted it to achieve.
I wanted to raise interest in my short fiction prior to formal publication.
I thought it would be motivation to keep writing and publishing regularly.
I hoped it would be an enjoyable, creative project.
I hoped to get lots of constructive feedback.
This last point is the only one where it has fallen short of my expectations, and I wonder whether I’ve gone about this the wrong way, or my expectations were just unrealistic.
The stories I post here are on a journey. They’re often the second or third version of the story that I’ve written, but that doesn’t mean that they’re ‘finished’ or ‘final’ in form. Few have yet had any professional input from an editor, for example. The destination is a volume of short stories, and another of novellas and novelettes, planned for the end of this year.
As a fiction writer, I set off from a known starting point, but can rapidly find myself in uncharted territory – writing about things that I don’t know well, or maybe from novel perspectives I hadn’t really thought about before.
On top of that, I’m trying to write about my adopted country in a way which is intelligible to international readers – without being annoyingly simplistic for other Australians.
Inevitably, I get things wrong.
So, don’t feel when reading these stories that you should ‘say something nice, or say nothing at all,’ as the old adage goes. If you have any feedback, I’m genuinely interested to read it.
That goes for this newsletter, too. I’m just guessing what you might want to know about me and my writing. If you have questions or requests for information – fire away!
I don’t want this project to end up smug, self-satisfied, self-absorbed. But I need your input.
🔭 A retrospective in figures
In the 365 days since Tall and Tiny Tales went live, we’ve had …
8 stories in 52 chapters (Tuesday Tales)
2 novellas in 45 chapters (Friday Novella)
There have been around 5,000 visits to this site and there are currently 96 subscribers including 5 paying subscribers. Around 50% of you have been with me since week 1.
🔮 The year ahead
Most of last year’s Tales were from my archive of stories, written during 2021. This year there will be more content that’s almost as new to me as it is to you.
A new Tuesday Tale Beach Walker will begin next Tuesday … which will be interesting, because I haven’t written it yet. It’s just the germ of an idea, conceived while, you guessed it, walking on the beach.
A new Friday Novella Jacky Winter has just started and will continue into April.
I’d love to grow my subscriber base further in 2023 … so if you know anyone who might enjoy Tall and Tiny Tales, please share!
🆕 Website updates
📚 Another e-book
As promised, I’ve added another downloadable e-book to my website. This month it’s Forked Creek in pdf and epub formats.
🎧 Podcast page
My website now has a podcast page. You’ll find a bonus recording of the short story Lethe there and links to my Spotify podcast.
That’s all, folks! Thanks for reading 🤠🪕🎶
Steve Fendt
Tall and Tiny Tales: stevefendt.substack.com
Author website: coriobay.blog
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