Followup #2: Short Story Marathon, One Year Later

The Short Version (TL;DR)

• Time flies when you’re writing like mad… I started this whole thing a year ago today, which is so hard to believe.
• The stories have done well in the market, “The Stars in Hoshi’s Eyes” found a home with The Saturday Evening Post, several earned Honorable Mentions from Writers of the Future Contest, plus more good news I can’t talk about yet.
• I’m still living with these stories (in some good ways and some bad ways, too).

The Longer Version

Why So Long to Update?

Well, busy, but I bet you guessed that.

And thirty stories with a total of over 118,000 words is a lot to wrangle.

But more than that, I had some good news to share (which I still can’t share) and that led to so much procrastination. I didn’t want to come talk about these stories without some good news. That rectified itself in March when “The Stars in Hoshi’s Eyes” landed at The Saturday Evening Post in the New Fiction Friday series, it’s just taken me a while to get to this post.

And even more than that, was a bit of embarrassment because I haven’t finished all these stories yet. A few were set aside because they needed some revisions (and the siren of “new” is hard for me to resist, so that kind of thing takes time for me to get to), and others were set aside because I was writing more stories in the same series. There are also some good reasons for the delay, like the Woody and June stories turning into a novel-length book that will be out soon!

What was Created

Well, 30 stories, obviousness, but really, a lot more than that:

• Confidence in my ability to write well and quickly.
• A great credit from The Saturday Evening Post.
• Several more Honorable Mentions at the Writers of the Future Contest,
• A novel-length collection of serialized stories: Woody and June Verses the Apocalypse (more coming soon).
• At least two short story collections down the road once I write some more stories for them
• A bunch more experience and a lot more stories to send out to market.

What’s Next?

• Well, there will hopefully be more good news soon about some of these stories. I have a strict policy of not talking about sales until a contract is in hand, so I can’t say anything else. It’s not official until you have a contract, which means it’s not real, which means I don’t talk about it (beyond being vague and annoying like I’m being here)
• I got distracted by Woody and June, some anthologies I wrote stories for, writing a novel in another series, and releasing two books. I’m getting back to the straggling stories and will finish them soon.
• Woody and June!!! Guys, these stories are so much fun and early feedback is excellent. Woody and June would not exist without this challenge. I can’t wait to share their stories with you.

Stay tuned. This adventure started a year ago, but the benefits of it will last for a long time.

Story Summary