by Jeff Kozzi
Although unpublished until January 2004, this story counts as one of my successes.
It was mostly written on New Year's Day, 1999, with a solid objective of marketing it for publication for the New Year, new century and new millennium (hey, every year starts a new millennium) starting 1 January 2000.
That didn't succeed. Never a quitter of anything but gainful but painful employment, I rewrote the story in a slant for the New Year, new century and new millennium starting 1 January 2001.
That didn't succeed either. Knowing the story was good--the rejection slips overwhelmingly stated, "we liked it but..."--I spent the ten bucks to enter it in the 2001 Writer's Digest short story contest in the genre division. Stories of this nature are a sub genre of science fiction, with excellent novels such as Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, David Brin's The Postman, and, most highly recommended, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm.
The story didn't win.
To my delight, it did rank at number 78. While 78 may be pretty far down the list, the contest received over 1600 entries in the genre division of the contest. I'll take a place in the top 5% any day, along with its honorable mention certificate.
With some revisions, I made half-hearted attempts to remarket it. The story was not as strong when the timeliness of the new millennium was removed. Then I found a horror/suspense site that was looking for "Buried Treasure"...stories that had won contests, but for whatever reason, had not been published. I sent the revised New Years Eve 2000/2001 edition.
It took first publication place on www.deathlings.com for the first of their semi-annual 2005 publications. That's ringing in the new year right!
The story is in part mood piece, and the only other thing I can say, at least in part to assure friends and relatives, is "I am NOT an alcoholic!" If you're even wondering why I would even need to say that, read the story as presented by deathlings.com!
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