A blog topic I keep coming back to is analyzing the first lines of my flash and short stories. As before, all this comes from the essay written by Stephen King called “Great Hookers I Have Known” in his now sadly out-of-print collection Secret… Continue Reading “The Hook Up: Yet More Fun With First Lines”
From March of 2010 to September of 2013, I was the editor-in-chief of Privateer Press’s in-house magazine No Quarter. I directly produced twenty issues (plus two special editions) as EIC and then another ten or so after I was promoted to publications manager (though the magazine… Continue Reading “Three Things I Learned as a Magazine Editor”
Today, I’m going to talk about writing media tie-in fiction for tabletop gaming companies. I actually know a thing or two about that because I’ve worked both sides of that particular fence. My last position in the industry was as a managing editor for… Continue Reading “Three Things I Learned About Writing Media Tie-In”
July was another good month. The third quarter is definitely looking better than the first two. July 2022 Report Card Submissions Sent: 5 Rejections: 6 No Response: 0 Acceptances: 2 Publications: 1 Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0 Slightly better than last month, but five submissions in… Continue Reading “Submission Statement: July 2022”
A few years ago, I posted the rejections I’d received from a pro market I’d been trying to crack from some time. The point of that post was to illustrate that rejections often indicate if you’re making progress with an editor/publisher and getting closer… Continue Reading “Charting Rejection Progression II”
June has come and gone, and it was one of the better months of the year for short stories. June 2022 Report Card Submissions Sent: 4 Rejections: 1 No Response: 0 Acceptances: 2 Publications: 0 Further Consideration/Shortlist: 1 Like May, June was not a… Continue Reading “Submission Statement: June 2022”
Way back in August of last year, I was joking with my wife about writing a baseball monster story featuring a certain type of monster. I offered the title Effectively Wild as a haha-isn’t-that-funny and got the appropriate eyeroll. Well, friends, that slightly silly idea… Continue Reading “Effectively Wild – A Horror/Baseball Novella”
I recently received a further consideration/hold letter from an excellent pro market. This is my third story to make it through a first reader and be recommended to one of the editors for further review. Now, it can be hard to quantify exactly what… Continue Reading “Further Considering Acceptance Rates”
Submitting short stories to genre and lit magazines is a process that can be, uh, well, let’s just say discouraging. Why? Because rejections are inevitable, multiple rejections for the same story are expected, and even two or three rejections in the same day are… Continue Reading “Swings & Misses IV: Revenge of the Rejection Streak”
May is in the books, and here’s how I did. May 2022 Report Card Submissions Sent: 5 Rejections: 7 No Response: 1 Acceptances: 0 Publications: 1 Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0 Well, as you can see, I was not particularly productive in May on the shot… Continue Reading “Submission Statement: May 2022”