Post by brendan on Oct 29, 2006 4:45:25 GMT -5
Hi, I'm new to these forums... I'd like to submit a short story to Dappled Things called "Winter Starlight," but it's 4130 words long, which is over the maximum of 3500 words. I can't shorten it -- its current length is actually the result of a major revision between the 1st and 2nd drafts that was necessary to address various things (the current version I'm calling 3.3).
Can anyone -- either people who have submitted work, or the editors of Dappled Things themselves -- tell me if the maximum word length is at all flexible, or might be lifted at some point?
If anyone's interested, this is the first part of the story:
ARCHDIOCESE OF WASHINGTON, D.C.
The last rays of the sun were casting their light over the Potomac as I walked west along Prospect Street toward the Leo J. O’Donovan cafeteria, coming from an English class I was teaching in Walsh. On my left the ground sloped steeply toward the river, obscured here by the long stretch of trees and underbrush that grew along the hill. It was only the second day of November, but a cold spell had brought the temperature below freezing. The leaves had begun to change early this year, and already the branches of the trees were almost bare. Here and there reluctant leaves still clung to summer, rattling insecurely with each gust of wind.
The sidewalk wound along the Village A apartments across the street on the right, eventually leaving them behind and passing by a bank of ivy, above which the windows of New South where I’d lived as an undergrad freshman year stared blankly at the world. I zipped my jacket closer to my collar, but the cold air still chilled my shoulders and stung my face. Shivering, I pulled my hands inside my sleeves. The coming winter pressed in around me, making me burrow inside myself to what was frozen within…
My eyes drifted over the wooded hillside that fell away on the left of the sidewalk. Beneath the bare trees and bushes the slope was matted with dead leaves, and in a few places fallen trees from a late summer storm crushed down on the underbrush in a tangle of broken sticks. The ground was littered with trash: plastic bags, an old running shoe, tattered pages of The Georgetown Voice, part of a toaster oven, an overturned red shopping cart — all outnumbered by crumpled beer cans, accumulated from parties on the Village A rooftops. I never knew why they ended up there, but for whatever reason it seemed to be their graveyard once they were no longer wanted.
I was starting to walk a bit faster when I heard a scratching sound close by on the slope. I stopped to see what it was, curious. At first I couldn’t spot anything, but then it caught my eye: a little bird, small enough to rest cupped inside my hands, was investigating an old pizza box. I was pretty sure she was a sparrow. She hopped her way inside the box, fluttering against cardboard for a while, looking for something to eat. I wondered if she would live through the winter – she seemed so small; alone and helpless. I knew she had to be hungry — the cold had come so early, and food was scarce. I waited there for some time, watching, hoping. But she found nothing, and after a while she gave up. She emerged disoriented from the box, and sat motionless on the ground for a while, looking about with lost, empty eyes. Eventually she hopped away, disappearing in a rustle of dried leaves.
…are you grieving over Goldengrove grove unleaving?
I sighed, and started walking once more.
____________________
... Again, that's the first part of the story. As it progresses, the main character -- whose name is eventually revealed as Kieran O'Connell -- goes through a sort of "internal" Divine Comedy, grieving over the death of his mother, who died August 15th. There's a surprise at the end as the reader learns something about him when one of his students calls out to him.
Can anyone -- either people who have submitted work, or the editors of Dappled Things themselves -- tell me if the maximum word length is at all flexible, or might be lifted at some point?
If anyone's interested, this is the first part of the story:
Winter Starlight
By Brendan McGrath
“The real excitement is to discover the divine at the heart of everything…”
~~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
A.M.D.G.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYBy Brendan McGrath
“The real excitement is to discover the divine at the heart of everything…”
~~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
A.M.D.G.
ARCHDIOCESE OF WASHINGTON, D.C.
The last rays of the sun were casting their light over the Potomac as I walked west along Prospect Street toward the Leo J. O’Donovan cafeteria, coming from an English class I was teaching in Walsh. On my left the ground sloped steeply toward the river, obscured here by the long stretch of trees and underbrush that grew along the hill. It was only the second day of November, but a cold spell had brought the temperature below freezing. The leaves had begun to change early this year, and already the branches of the trees were almost bare. Here and there reluctant leaves still clung to summer, rattling insecurely with each gust of wind.
The sidewalk wound along the Village A apartments across the street on the right, eventually leaving them behind and passing by a bank of ivy, above which the windows of New South where I’d lived as an undergrad freshman year stared blankly at the world. I zipped my jacket closer to my collar, but the cold air still chilled my shoulders and stung my face. Shivering, I pulled my hands inside my sleeves. The coming winter pressed in around me, making me burrow inside myself to what was frozen within…
My eyes drifted over the wooded hillside that fell away on the left of the sidewalk. Beneath the bare trees and bushes the slope was matted with dead leaves, and in a few places fallen trees from a late summer storm crushed down on the underbrush in a tangle of broken sticks. The ground was littered with trash: plastic bags, an old running shoe, tattered pages of The Georgetown Voice, part of a toaster oven, an overturned red shopping cart — all outnumbered by crumpled beer cans, accumulated from parties on the Village A rooftops. I never knew why they ended up there, but for whatever reason it seemed to be their graveyard once they were no longer wanted.
I was starting to walk a bit faster when I heard a scratching sound close by on the slope. I stopped to see what it was, curious. At first I couldn’t spot anything, but then it caught my eye: a little bird, small enough to rest cupped inside my hands, was investigating an old pizza box. I was pretty sure she was a sparrow. She hopped her way inside the box, fluttering against cardboard for a while, looking for something to eat. I wondered if she would live through the winter – she seemed so small; alone and helpless. I knew she had to be hungry — the cold had come so early, and food was scarce. I waited there for some time, watching, hoping. But she found nothing, and after a while she gave up. She emerged disoriented from the box, and sat motionless on the ground for a while, looking about with lost, empty eyes. Eventually she hopped away, disappearing in a rustle of dried leaves.
…are you grieving over Goldengrove grove unleaving?
I sighed, and started walking once more.
____________________
... Again, that's the first part of the story. As it progresses, the main character -- whose name is eventually revealed as Kieran O'Connell -- goes through a sort of "internal" Divine Comedy, grieving over the death of his mother, who died August 15th. There's a surprise at the end as the reader learns something about him when one of his students calls out to him.
