2026 is another year of short stories. In this weekly series, I talk about short story writing, from idea and draft to submission.
This is week eight: Mar. 2 – 8.
Stats
- Stories Finished: 2
- Submissions Currently Out: 5
- Submissions Total: 8
- Rejections: 7
- Acceptances: 0
Goals and Results
My goals for last week were:
- Submit critiques.
- Start a new story.
It was a busy week outside of writing, but I’ll count both of these for partial credit. I did work on my Critters critiques, but I still need to get one more done before Wednesday. F-TIB is scheduled to go out for review this week, and I’d rather not have it delayed for a week while I get caught up.
Despite my noises last week about giving up on Out of Towner, I actually wrote six or seven more pages. I was able to employ that classing writing technique of just skipping over the part I wasn’t sure about. That means I’ll have to come back to that part later, but at least I can hope that I’ll have a better perspective on it when the rest of the story is done. That goal is a partial miss only because I’m still a few hundred words behind my self-imposed average daily word count.
Rejections
I marked down three rejections this week. One was from Clarkesworld, a magazine I love not only for the fiction they publish, but for their absolutely no-nonsense attitude toward submissions and crazy fast turnaround times for reading submissions. I send a lot of new stories their way, because I know I’ll get a response in a couple days; basically unmatched speed among high-tier pro markets.
Another of these was a non-response from a magazine whose Duotrope stats show it averages non-responses on 5-10% of its submissions. These are a thing that everyone who submits a lot will run into eventually, but it’s still annoying. I do my best to act professionally as a writer, and I expect the same from publishers I’m submitting to. On the other hand, it’s a real AI-slopfest-shitshow in publishing right now, and you never know what an overstrained, underpaid editorial staff might be going through.
Next Week
My goals for next week:
- Get my Critters ratio in the green by Wednesday.
- Catch up on my word count goal, and possibly finish the first draft of Out of Towner.
- Submit Taco Cat.
Words Deferred 