It’s ironic that my first published story is one of the quickest-written stories I’ve ever done.

On Wednesday, I read Vylar Kaftan’s challenge to writers to write a fantasy piece about movies for the Cinema Spec anthology. The anthology was near closing, and the editor Karen Romanko had said that she was still looking for a high fantasy story.

Now, I had an idea for a somewhat-appropriate story that had been mellowing in my head for a long time. It wasn’t high fantasy as I originally intended it, but I was able to make some minor tweaks to the premise to make it fit. It wound up not being secondary-world fantasy but a portal fantasy–close enough that I hoped it would meet the editor’s needs. So I banged it out in a few hours Wednesday night, and mailed it to a few friends Thursday. Based on their feedback I revised it on Friday–and submitted, two hours before the deadline.

Karen was wonderful, and responded within a few days saying she was holding it for a second look. About a week after that I got the acceptance notice.

The moral of the story is: A good way to get published is to write something that fits an editor’s needs, even if you have to crank it out in 48 hours :).