2026 is another year of short stories. In this weekly series, I track my short story writing, from idea and draft to submission.
These are the weeks of Aug 16 – Aug 30.
Stats
- Stories Finished: 3
- Submissions Currently Out: 10
- Submissions Total: 32
- Rejections: 24
- Acceptances: 0
Submissions and Responses
Two stories came back this week with form rejections: Dr. Clipboard and Red Eye. The Red Eye response was a whopping 180 days, but this is just the price you pay when submitting a story over 6000 words.
With Dr. Clipboard free of its “no simultaneous submissions” shackles, I submitted it to two less monogamous publications. Red Eye is not so lucky; most publications that take longer stories (and actually pay) like to be exclusive.
Goals
My goals from last week:
- Keep up with critiques
- Hit writing/editing quotas every day.
This was a change of pace from more specific “get X done” goals that I’ve been doing, to pure numbers. Ironically, I didn’t quite keep up with my quotas, but I did get the draft of Estate Sale edited to my satisfaction, and submitted to the Critters critique queue. I also gave it a new name: The Magpie. I’m still not sure this is the final title, but it’s the working one for now.
Next Week
I’m going to keep the same goals for next week, but my intent is to work on cleaning up T.I.M. for critique and write some new words on Arbor Grove.
Words Deferred 