"Saltwater" - The Story

 As you know, my flash fiction "Saltwater" was accepted for publication into Tiny Seed Literary Journal (yay!).

This particular piece has a lot of history to it, so I wanted to share "the story behind the story," as it were.

This story was inspired by a sample TAKS writing prompt my junior year of high school. The prompt was, more or less, Write about how home can be more than a place. It just got me thinking, and before long, the original form of "Saltwater" was born, simply titled "Home" (for lack of a better title).

For years afterward, that original short story sat on my desktop, untouched and mostly forgotten. Until I was flying home from my first year of college, and the song "Home" by Daughtry came over my headphones. I remembered that short story, and decided I wanted to do more with it.

Over the next several years, the short story expanded into a full-length novel, which underwent many, many drafts and a point-of-view change before I was satisfied with it. The original story was the beginning of my novel until I switched the point of view, but I kept the original anyway. The novel I later self-published on Amazon (and that's another story), but the short story that started it all remained on my desktop.

Fast-forward about six more years, and I was facing my first year of teaching, with no idea where to look for resources to teach revising and editing to 7th graders. So I returned to some of my old short stories, "Saltwater" among them (still titled "Home"), and reworked them. Naturally, I heavily revised it in line with what I was teaching, specifically imagery and correcting passive voice. 

A few versions of the story existed at that time: one, the original. Two, the reworked and corrected one, and three, the one with errors left in or deliberately added for my students to identify and correct. Later, I created a new version when I began teaching reading in addition to writing. 

The more I worked with the story, the more I wanted to perfect it. So I took some time to properly revise and edit it with a wider reading audience in mind than just my 7th graders. And then I decided I wanted someone else to publish my work. I was hoping for an ego boost, seeing as the only real feedback I've received on my writing has been from the before-mentioned 7th graders and readers on Fanfiction.net, who may or may not know what they're talking about. I also wanted to start truly pursuing my long-held goal of becoming a published author (the self-published novel, I decided, didn't count).

So I began submitting my work to contests and journals online. I needed a better title, though, if I wanted to be taken seriously and get the idea of my work across. So I chose "Saltwater," a play on the double meaning inherent in the setting and conflict of the story. Finally satisfied with my work, I submitted it to Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and the rest is history!

You can view the publication here as of June 6, 2022.