2024 is my year of short stories. In this weekly series, I talk about the stories I’m working on, from idea and draft to submission.
- Stories in Progress – 3
- Submissions This Week – 0
- Submissions Currently Out – 3
- Acceptances This Year – 1
- Rejections This Year – 17 (7 personalized)
No Submissions, No Responses
My stories are currently submitted to publishers with longer turnaround times, so I had no responses this week. It was a nice break to get caught up on other writing tasks. I still haven’t submitted those drabbles that have been sitting around. More on that below.
The Writing Pipeline
Recently, I’ve been thinking about my writing pipeline. When I find myself doing the same type of work (like editing drafts) for too long, I lose focus and slow down. It is good to actually finish projects instead of endlessly jumping between half-finished things, but when I’m getting stuck on a project, it’s better to make some progress on another piece than grind ineffectively.
This week, I tried to diversify my writing more than I have been. I spent some dedicated brainstorming time generating new story ideas, which I haven’t done in quite a while. I also started outlining the new story I mentioned last week, The Vine. Finally, I wrote more of Portrait of the Artist in Wartime, a story where I suspect I will end up with a large word count and have to pare down.
What I didn’t do this week is any editing of Red Eyes, which is the story I was stuck on.
Next week, I’m going to try the same tactic and split my time among a few projects, and I might go back to Red Eyes to see if I can be more productive.
The List
The last thing I did this week is finish compiling my big list of potential publications for submitting drabbles.
One interesting discovery (which is obvious in retrospect) is that many publications will pay a fixed amount per story, and while $5-20 per story doesn’t seem like much, it ranges from a respectable semi-pro to top-tier professional pay rate when the story is exactly 100 words.
My next step will be to rearrange these publications into a rough ranking. I’d like to try more simultaneous submissions, but that will be limited by the amount of time I want to spend submitting.
Goals for Next Week
- Work on brainstorming, The Vine, Portrait, and Red Eyes – whatever feels most productive
- Submit some drabbles
Words Deferred 