The first short story I ever wrote, The Volunteer, managed to earn a spot in an Asia-Pacific speculative fiction anthology. I’m told it’s uncommon to sell your first short story, and was very pleased to find a home for it.
Mind you, it also scored around 18 rejections and I rewrote the damn thing about a dozen times. It started out as a 2000-word piece for a competition, got extended to 8500 words after bombing in said competition, and finally settled around the 6400 mark.
In re-reading The Volunteer, I can see how much my writing has already improved since completing it. However, the core idea of the story remains an interesting one. It’s a military science fiction noir story about a man conscripted into the Chinese army. It deals with the nature of identity, and the devastating impact the caprice of the powerful has on the individual.
I’ve yet to read the entire anthology (my hard copy has not yet arrived), but the cover art is fantastic and the commitment to finding new voices in the Asia-Pacific commendable. You just don’t find speculative fiction that draws on Chinese, or Japanese or Filipino mythology anywhere, but you’ll find all this and more in Amok.
If you’re interested in reading, you can find it here at Amazon.