Below, dear reader, please find bonus content for Suzanne’s book: ELEMENTS: A Collection of Speculative Fiction.
This series of posts provides stories-behind-the-stories for each tale in ELEMENTS.
Sitting in the 11th slot in the Table of Contents is: Destiny Lives in the Tattoo’s Needle
Of all the stories I’ve written to date, I think that I’m most proud of the title, Destiny Lives in the Tattoo’s Needle, the first of my short stories to be a finalist for an Aurora Award.
I believe that most writers struggle to pen great story titles. Back when I used to do formal critiques for Critters, I used to say that titles were my nemesis.
Like the cover for a book, the title draws the reader in. It should also foreshadow the plot. Coming up with words that meet all of these requirements is hard.
One of the techniques I’ve grown to appreciate for generating a title is choosing a phrase from the story, which is how I chose this one.
Destiny is my first steampunk story. It begins with:
I dropped from the airship like a rock, praying for my chute to open.
Because, hey, if you’re going to wave the steampunk flag, you might as well use an airship. And what better way to introduce an airship than with an explosive crash to the ground!
Although this particular story doesn’t include any corsets or goggles, the sequels might. Which begs the question, “Where are these sequels that you speak of?”
They aren’t written. No yet.
Many of Destiny’s readers have asked me to write more fiction about these characters and their world. And on more than one butt-in-chair occasion, I’ve considered writing more about them.
Maybe even a novel.
Encouragement for such adventures is greatly appreciated. 😉
Fun Fact
In my post Storm Child – Putting a Fresh Face on a Timeless Myth I mentioned the writers’ group that formed after the workshop I attended at DragonCon 2000.
One of the members of the DC2K Writers’ Workshop, my good friend Louise Herring-Jones challenged me to use the word “sage grass” in a story.
I asked her, “What’s sage grass?”
She answered, “It’s a horrible, bitter weed. Even goats won’t eat it.”
Not only does sage grass appear in Destiny, but I also used her line about goats refusing to eat the stuff.
Thanks, Louise Herring-Jones!
ELEMENTS: A Collection of Speculative Fiction is available in Canada and the USA from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing.
Greenie is a teenaged Strunjox–a towering green beast with a long snout and sharp claws. His species are native to the desert planet Deslot, a world where drug trafficking is the source of employment for more than half the population. 
On the day I visited 
Since I’d had such a quick and amazing success with Couch, I wrote the follow-up story with 
The protagonist, Lorna, is an engineer hired to improve the toilet designs on a space station. And we all know, from a fairly early age, that toilet jokes never go out of fashion. If you don’t believe me, try reading one of 
Originally, I submitted Waste Management to 
This is a picture of me writing/editing in the spring of 2002. It’s possible that I was actually working on Couch that day. I love how there’s a bottle of Heinz Ketchup on the table, since back then every meal involved HK.
I think they might’ve bought the couch in the 1950s (1960s at the latest), and furniture manufacturers sure don’t build couches to last that long now. It was old and somewhat ratty (we used to cover it with a quilt to hide its ugliness), but virtually indestructible. Here’s a shot of of the couch, including my aunt, uncle, and cousin in the early 70s.
When the couch was in my possession, we used to push the two halves together. (Except for that one co-op term when my apartment was so small that I only had room for HALF the couch.) My kids–and the occasional unsuspecting guest–would sit too close to the middle and fall through the gap onto the floor! (as my younger son demonstrates with his head in 2002) The couch sat on hardwood floors and we had no way to fasten the two pieces together. 
So when people say, “Do the math,” in most cases, I can actually do it!
Fun Fact 
Years ago, I was scoping out 
A couple of years later, I took a workshop run by the incomparable 
Sandra Kasturi is Co-Publisher at 
Come Late to the Love of Birds
In the summer of 2000, AKA “2K”, I attended my first writers’ workshop, taught by 
