Yesterday, issue 23 of the Stonecoast Review went live, with a Zoom call to promote it. As my short story “Bleeding Blue” is part of the issue, I attended and gave a three-minute reading. Now it’s time to tell you how the story came about.
Almost a decade ago I read History in Three Keys about the Boxer Rebellion and later interpretations of it. Author Peter Cohen mentioned that the Boxers believed they had magic to protect them from bullets; when it didn’t work they had rationalizations why, such as menstruating women canceling out their magic.
Hmm, I thought … what if menstruating women did cancel out magic?
This floated around in the back of my mind for a long while, with lurid images of women simply smearing menstrual blood on things to dispel enchantments. Which is something some writers could have pulled off, perhaps, but not me. When I finally set down to write it, my concept was a little less in-your-face: women having their period neutralize magic by touch. That’s all it took.
The original vague concept of a career cop protagonist (like the one on the cover, drawn by John F. Rosenberger) faded in favor of a POV character who’s not career law enforcement, she’s a draftee. Pre-menopausal woman in a given town go through a draft lottery each month; if you get a low number, you spend the three days of your period (I know periods aren’t always exactly three days but the law says otherwise) working with cops, firefighters, National Guard to help defuse hostile magic.
My original concept of a world where magic was the norm also faded. Instead I imagined magic coming back into force with the new millennium. Then society discovered the neutralizing power of menstruating women. The initial response — let’s make them all isolate themselves when they’re bleeding! — got shot down in a wave of protests and multiple misogynist politicians losing their position. Then came the idea of putting their power to use.
I soon had my protagonist, Janice, a zookeeper who works with raptors. I got the supporting cast: Moxon, the misogynist giving her orders and two female cops currently on “shield duty.” Esquivel is a Latina who normally works cybercrime; Drummond’s on a SWAT team.
Then all that remained was the easy stuff — writing it (peals of derisive laughter, Bruce!). I wanted Janice to handle several different cases but I had to figure out how exactly the police would use her, what might go wrong and what kind of case would provide the climax. That took writing, rewriting, and then rewriting some more. Everything had to be interesting; I also wanted to shed more light on how the draft system works without info-dumping.
Finally I finished it. Then I shopped it around, getting rejection after rejection. Finally I sent it to Stonecoast and got the green light. My editor had a couple of changes she wanted me to make for clarity, such as giving a better sense of the magic rules up front. Happily the changes were simple to make and didn’t turn into info-dumps, so yay!
You can order a copy here though #23 isn’t actually out yet.
All rights to image remain with current holder.
Congratulations on the publication!
Thank you.