Short story submissions.

c2011 (S)


After completing my seventh novel, now I have time to go back to making short story submissions. I haven't written a new one since about March of 2011. What I have is a folder with fifty to sixty stories of varying length and quality.

Some of the first ones I wrote were actually pretty badly written. At the time, it was the best I could do. But every thing we write gives us more experience. When we listen to other authors, or visit sites and read about the craft of writing, we learn something new.

What this does is allow us to improve upon the old dogs in the folder. It's often a little bit daunting. I crack open a file and start reading...and next thing you know I'm cutting out a few words, removing a half a paragraph, and taking out those damned semi-colons. I'm re-phrasing things for greater clarity. I'm finding the odd little problem of logical sequencing. And I subbed a few of these stories all over the place.

It's part of the learning curve, and not just about learning how to work or deal with rejection. It's learning the greatest lesson a writer will ever learn. It is to learn the art of persistence.

Lately I have been submitting exclusively to professional and semi-professional magazines. We're in a recession that just goes on and on. The market is very tight.

I'm up against the best writers in the world, maybe even the galaxy. I'm up to 633 submissions since February 2009, and right now I seem to be failing miserably.

I just e-mailed a story to a magazine in a pro market and the e-mail bounced. The thing to do is to try again. Most likely their inbox is stuffed to the rafters. Over the last couple of years, the semi-pro market especially seems to have shrunk quite a bit, although there are quite a few pro listings. For the time being, I'm not assuming that they have folded or gone on hiatus.

Other than that, I will endure.