Week 10 — Year of Short Stories 2026

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 ten: Mar. 9-15.

Stats

• Stories Finished: 2
• Submissions Currently Out: 6
• Submissions Total: 11
• Rejections: 9
• Acceptances: 0

Goals and Results

My goals for last week were:

1. Get my Critters ratio in the green by Wednesday.
2. Catch up on my word count goal, and possibly finish the first draft of Out of Towner.
3. Submit Taco Cat.

I had a story in the Critters queue, and I needed to get my ratio up to ensure it went out. I got that done early in the week, the story went out, and the feedback has been steadily coming in.

I haven’t finished Out of Towner, but I’ve made some good progress. I think the story probably needs another 500 words or so to wrap it up. I’ll see if I can get to that this week. I also wrote a few hundred words of a solarpunk idea that may or may not go anywhere. Either way, I’m happy to now be well ahead of my word count and editing goals for March.

Submissions and Responses

I had a form rejection for my drabble Tom, Dick, and Larry, which I sent out to a drabble-specific themed issue. I have a couple of these 100 word stories knocking around, but I mostly only send them out these days when I see a flash fiction theme that fits them.

I also received a personalized rejection for The Incident at Pleasant Hills. I’ve been submitting this story for a while now, and while it has gotten positive feedback a couple of times, it just hasn’t gotten across the finish line. I think it’s a good story that will eventually find a home, so I sent it out again.

I also sent out a pair of submissions for Taco Cat Employee Manual. That keeps it active and covers goal #3 for the week.

Next Week

The Critters’ critiques of my story, F-TIB, will finish rolling in by Wednesday. At that point, I’ll have a bunch of notes to work through. I will also want to get another story in the queue as quickly as possible. I think the next one on the docket is called Hunter’s Apprentice. I’ll need to read through it a few times and try to get it as polished as possible (for a draft that only a couple people have read).

I’d also like to get one or two critiques ahead. I didn’t enjoy having a tight deadline to get those done so my story would go out. Getting ahead makes that less of a concern.

Goals for next week:

1. Prep a story to queue up for Critters.
2. Start the post-Critters revisions for F-TIB.
3. Get ahead on critiques.