August Update

Hello, readers!  I'm posting today, both because it's time for my monthly update, and because I won't have time this weekend.

As I mentioned in my July update, I'm going to be changing gears for a month or two.  Partly this is because I'm going to have a lot on my plate for the next month, and partly because I've gotten to a point with Wolf and Sheath where I just need to step away from it for a bit.

Late last week I wrapped up things with W and S, preparing to put it away for a while, and started rereading some of my short stories, partial stories, snippets, and ideas.  I had been thinking recently that after "The Cause of the Disturbance" and "The Wrong Kind of People," the two stories that I currently have out for submission, that I didn't really have anything else I could be submitting.  But after digging through and rereading a lot of my files, I've found that I have a lot more than I thought.

I've found that I have a lot of good quality, nearly complete stories - many of them from prompts and exercises - that it wouldn't take a whole lot of work to make them publishable.

So, while I may not have a lot of time in the upcoming month or so, I think I now have a good project that won't take as much direct focus as working on a single novel.  I am going to pick out a handful of those nearly-finished stories and figure out what needs to be done for them, where I might have good luck submitting, etc.  But, with that said, I won't be submitting all of them to 5,000 places at once.  

Instead, I will be taking the advice of Janisse Ray, an author who I recently heard speak, and chose five places to submit.  Then wait 'til I hear back.  And, honestly, doing it that way it'll be easier to keep track of what I have out, where I'm waiting to hear back from, etc.

And, of course, if and when I have success, I will share it here.