The High Line extension, before the renovations
Writing About Writing

The Path Ahead

/
The High Line extension, before the renovations
Photo by Pamela Weis – The High Line 2013

Writing goals are difficult for me to make. I tend to have multiple projects moving about in my head (and on my computer) at once and I don’t like pinning myself down to anything too specific or rigid. Last year, my only goal was to submit short stories 100 times (In other words, among the 15 or so stories I had ready for submission, I wanted to submit them, in total, 100 times). And I got close. In the end, those subs resulted in four acceptances. Two of those were published last year and two will be published this year. I’m very excited about the two coming up. And just last week I received my first short story acceptance of 2026. Hooray!

So, do I have a goal for this year? Yeah. The same one. I want to hit 100 short story submissions. Some I may only submit five or six times. Others I may submit twenty times. It all depends on the markets that fit the stories, how long they take to respond, whether they accept simultaneous submissions (i.e. sending to more than one publication at a time), how many are acceptances, how many stories I can get into shape, etc. Many variables here. But I got super close last year so I think I can do it this year.

I’d also like to finally pull together a short story collection. And I’d like to get a second draft going of the novel I wrote last year. And I want to get the final draft of the novella I workshopped with my critique group last year. And…yeah. It’s always a lot.

In the meantime, here are details on one of the forthcoming publications: Dim Shores will be releasing Suffering the Other, an anthology that will benefit the Transgender Law Center and National Immigration Project. My story, “An Abomination,” is one of my more philosophical yet grim tales. I’ll be sure to post the link to the anthology when it’s available for purchase.

On a final note, I had a lovely surprise about a month ago. Ellen Datlow, who is one of the great editors of horror fiction, compiles the annual anthology, The Best Horror of the Year. She also publishes a recommended reading list after the final selections for the anthology have been made. I did not make the final anthology, but I did make the recommended list and wow, what a huge honor! It was my 2024 story in Not One of Us Magazine, “Did You Pay for This Room?” I’m proud of that little story. It will definitely show up in my short story collection, once I manage to get it finished (and published).

Cover of anthology, This Exquisite Topology
Writing About Writing

Getting Published Rocks

/

Yeah, that’s pretty much the whole post. Getting published rocks.

I don’t think I’ve posted anything in awhile, but I have a few publications/productions out there in the world now (including the one represented by the image above) and I’m starting to feel like hey, I’m a real writer. Kind of cliche, I know, but it’s 100% true.

And it feels especially good lately because it’s actually gotten really hard for me to find time to write. For various familial reasons, I don’t have a lot of spare time. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I don’t have a lot of spare mental energy. Not enough spoons. But I’m still managing it once or twice a week. And this blog post kind of counts (but not really).

I did start writing a new novel. I think. I suppose it may end up being shorter than that. A novella. Not sure. It’s too early in the process. One of those stories that was supposed to be around 4000 words and then suddenly it was 6000 and then 10,000 and now it’s up to around 12,000. And I still have more to explore. I’m hoping it will be over 50,000 words in the end. If so, it will be my first novel length horror story. Wheeee!

Anyway, the take-home message here is: getting published rocks and I need to find the energy to write more, but in the meantime I’m going to ride the good feeling of having my work out there in the world, possibly subject to terrible reviews, possibly good ones (hopefully good ones), and maybe even gaining a fan or two.

Happy Friday.

Writing About Writing

Sweet Acceptance

/

Last summer, I got my first short story acceptance. The feeling of “oh my god, they like me” was so overwhelming that it actually kept my ego churning along at a healthy clip for several weeks. Because let’s be real. After several years of submitting stories without any responses of “yes we like this and want to buy it” well, it can be hard to keep the faith. Such a small thing, acceptance for a short story. Just a little story. No big deal. But it was a big deal. It is. It still is. And since then, I’ve had one more acceptance. And now one of those two accepted stories has been published. It exists in the world on a printed page in a tiny journal that only a select group of readers and writers have ever heard of and I could not be more thrilled. I’m so fucking proud of my little story. And I’ll be proud when the other one comes out, which hopefully will be soon. And I’ll keep sending in my little stories to little magazines because this is how it works. Being a writer in today’s world.

Decades ago there were many fewer little magazines. And they were not so little. They had huge audiences. But there was no internet. And maybe fewer writers. Definitely fewer writers in terms of absolute numbers. The whole damn population was smaller. We’ve really outgrown this space we take up. But here we are, still writing. Still trying to get published.

I sometimes envy the writers of “back then” but then I think, no, I would have probably lived a very different life as a woman during those earlier times (pick your pre-internet decade). With fewer choices. Probably with several children that maybe I did not really want. Finding the time to write and submit stories to the few magazines out there would have been a luxury that I could not afford.

So despite the low pay and the vast numbers of other writers and the unlikelihood of ever actually being able to make a living doing this thing I love, I’ll keep going. And if I can just get one of those lovely “yes we like you” notes now and then, I’ll be good.

Oh…here’s where you can find the now-published short story, which, by the way, is called “Did You Pay for This Room?” It’s a horror story about a bitter middle-aged woman on a train and the strange child she meets there, and appears in Not One of Us, Issue #78.