It's a pulp-fiction podcast, which means they do these 15-30 minute podcasts once a week of short pulp, sci-fi or horror, read by actors. It's free, and you can sign up for it at iTunes. I read about it on Boing Boing just as the first one was going up last April. Anyway, I started vetting submissions about two months ago as a volunteer thing — because I thought well, if I like what's getting on the podcast I might really like some of the stuff that doesn't make it to podcast. Free reading! Amazingly, they were happy for my help.

So I read. I read a lot of drek. I found a lot of good stuff. And even read one story which the author had copyrighted in 1973. Most of what I've given thumbs up to has ended up on the podcast since, which either means I'm in agreement with the guy who runs the site, or it's just luck. But it's been fun, and hard: I don't like judging other people's writing.

Anyway, reading what I read either got the juices going or made me realize I couldn't do worse than some of this stuff that folks had proudly put forward and I got an inspiration after going to my mom's place in Austin for Thanksgiving. The story popped out shortly thereafter, and after a rewrite or two, voila. It seemed tailor-made for the podcast, so I sent it off.

Tonight I heard back: Yep, they liked it. Yep, they'll pay. Yep, it's a 14-page contract (seriously) that involves two years of movie options, should they want to option. You get paid extra if they exercise the option (they already made one film based on a short they have, and that should be out later this year). Meanwhile, I can send it off elsewhere, should I desire (and I might do that).

Hurrah!

The only downside is it's got a holiday theme and I didn't finish it until the first of this year, so it won't be out until December-ish. But I'll be sure to update in this space once I know.

It's a nice, nice feeling!