The Story Behind the Story: “Circus Act”
A behind-the-scenes look at how this short fiction came to life.
Circus Act is available to read at Another New Calligraphy, first published in January 2024.
I rage-wrote this short story one Friday afternoon, after a particularly frustrating week at work when I felt like shit hit the fan and nothing was going right and I was still expected to live up to unrealistic expectations.
This was the first time that I channeled my anger into art, transforming my rage into creative fuel, and I was proud of myself for doing so. I could have vented to a friend, or stress-eaten, or worse, kept the negative feelings to myself and wallowed in my own misery. But I was able to release it and mold it into this art form, which is why I think this piece in particular holds significant meaning to me every time I read it.
At the core of it, Circus Act is a story about expectations — how people cheer you on when you’re doing well and easily turn against you when you find yourself slipping.
At that moment in time, I felt like I was doing this impossible juggling act at work.
Yes, I was great at my job. But I realized that the better I performed, more responsibilities and projects came my way, with my colleagues noticing that, “Hey, Nicola can handle it. Let’s give her more work.” I was trying to be on top of it for as long as I could. But you know what they say — when rubber bands are stretched too far and for too long, they break.
On this particular week when I’d written this story, I had made two grave errors — an error in judgment born out of frustration that resulted in a tense exchange with a senior leader in the company, and an error in business reporting because of a data issue that I myself had flagged early on but ended up forgetting about it. It was as if I tripped on a wire that I identified as a hazard.
Long story short, I was having one of my roughest weeks at work.
Because I was a high performer, I was always a visible person in the company. Therefore, whether it was an achievement or an error or failure, they were always magnified because it involved me — someone that people had high expectations for.
I felt like I was in a circus, performing in front of an audience under blinding lights, being asked to do the most impossible things and smile through it all. This analogy had been so strong in my head that it became the main impetus for my writing Circus Act.
Originally, the title of this flash fiction piece was Circus Freak because that was how I felt — a freak of nature, a pawn in a traveling circus. And I started sending this story out to literary magazines and journals with Circus Freak as the title.
But after only receiving rejections for the first 3 weeks, I revisited the story with fresh lens to see if something about this piece wasn’t working anymore. After all, I did rage-write it.
Story-wise, I was fervent in my belief that it was solid as a rock. However, I did gravitate toward the word “Freak” in my title and thought that it may have been too strong.
Story titles are the author’s first attempt at getting editors to be curious about their story. In this case, I hypothesized that the word “Freak,” which had a negative connotation, may have anchored editors into reading the piece as an angry rant, when it was so much more nuanced than that.
So instead of Circus Freak, I replaced it with a more subdued title, Circus Act. With the new title, I thought that it sounded inviting and intriguing enough for editors to want to read what happens next.
I revised the title but kept the story intact, then sent it again to another round of publications.
After 14 rejections across the two versions of the story title, Circus Act finally got accepted for publication by Another New Calligraphy, specifically in their online journal aptly named “Impossible Task.” This brief piece held so much personal meaning to me that I was rooting for it to find a home. Thankfully, it landed on a publication that aligned with the overall theme of the story and gave it the standing ovation that it deserved.
So, Long Story Short (SLSS) is a Medium publication where I pull back the curtain on my original works of short fiction that have been published in literary magazines and journals.
I write about the why and the how, and I aim to post my thoughts within two weeks from the story’s first publication, while the story is still fresh on my mind.
By doing so, I hope to have written artifacts beyond the stories themselves and be reminded of my motivations, inspirations, and evolving writing process, as well as the state of the external world and my inner life in that moment in time.
Thanks for following along.
For more short fiction writing, consider subscribing to my Substack newsletter of the same name, So, Long Story Short.
I write drabbles and offer a behind-the-scenes look at my original works of short fiction published in literary magazines and journals.
