An Unexpected Writing Update

There are a few mantras you have to repeat to yourself when submitting short stories. “Keep it out there” is an important one – never let the story sit, eventually it will find a market. “Keep track of your submissions” is a super valuable one that I don’t think gets enough press. Whether you pay for Duotrope, use the amazing services of The Grinder at Diabolical Plots, or run your own homebew solution, you have to keep track of where you sent a story and when. This helps you not send it to the same editor twice, but it also let’s you keep track of how long it’s been out.

Take me. Lately, my stories have been novel length. That doesn’t mean I won’t write a short story if it bites, but most of the stories I’ve been working on of late have been, well, longer. That wasn’t always the case, and with some downtime yesterday I reviewed where I had stories pending still. To my surprise, and thanks to pure neglect, I had a few stories that had been out long past the point that I should have heard something back. So I did the only thing that made sense.

I wrote the editors and asked if they were still considering the story. This may seem a bold move if you know me, but at 100+ days, I figured it was about time.

This morning, one of the editors responded. Which is why I’m happy to share that I have my second publication (pending), a sale to the Enter the Apocalypse anthology. I don’t want to give too much away yet, but consider the story has both kaiju and vampirism in it, and this song was in my head when I wrote the first draft.

And happy Friday!