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 – 4
- Submissions This Week – 0
- Submissions Currently Out – 6
- Acceptances This Year – 1
- Rejections This Year – 17 (7 personalized)
Another Story
Last week, feeling blocked on my stories in progress, I started working on a new story. This week, inspiration struck for yet another idea. Since I was excited about that, I let the momentum carry me and started on a fourth story.
I do believe that it’s important to work on finishing things, and that writers can fall into a bad habit of chasing ideas without ever putting in the work to revise and polish. Unfortunately, revision is never as thrilling as that first discovery of a new story, and sometimes working on exciting new ideas can be a good emotional reset. Working on the thing that excites you at the moment can be a good way to boost word count as well.
Simultaneous Subs
This was the second week in a row with no responses to my current submissions. Since I purposely picked publications that accept simultaneous submissions for my drabbles, I should probably send those to at least one or two more places.
Goals for Next Week
This upcoming week, I’m going to try to motivate myself with a word count goal. I plan to write 1,000 words on one of these stories in progress every day. That should get me close to finishing at least one of them—although my first drafts tend to run long.
Words Deferred 