I've achieved a writerly milestone: my first pro-level fiction sale! My short story "Athlete's Foot" will appear in the first issue of Crowded Magazine. Crowded is a new speculative fiction publication based in Australia, which means I've now sold my work on three different continents.
My non-writer friends have asked me, "So what's a pro sale? Does this mean you're going to quit your job and wear a beret and move to a fancy chalet in the Alps like some pretentious artistic jerk?" Sadly, no. In writer's parlance, a pro sale is any magazine for which you're paid a minimum of five cents per word. It may not sound like a huge amount compared to one's day job--as Merlin Mann might say, writing to make money is like learning ventriloquism to meet girls--but it's not too bad for something I created out of nothing. I'll still act like a pretentious jerk, mind you, just without the beret (and with the day job, in case my boss is reading this).
I'll post publication dates and other details as they arrive. Crowded seems like a cool magazine, and I hope you'll consider supporting them.