Short Story Submissions On a Roll!In April, I gave the update that my original goal planning was not cutting it, and so I made a stretch goal - submit (and get rejections [for]) sixty (60) short stories this year. This will lead up linearly until in my fifth true year of submissions, I'm aiming for 150. I try to stay on top of submissions by having a specific number reached as the calendar year progresses. Othewrise, I might be stuck short of my goal with a large number of closed-for-the-holidays and/or a break markets. As of today, I should have sent forty-two (42) stories out in the world - the same number I actually sent out in 2021. I am excited to say, I have submitted fifty (50) short stories already in 2022. I am only ten (10) away from my goal and have a whole four (4) months to get them sent out. New Stories in RotationSince the April update, I have 2-3 shorter works that I have fully polished and am sending out, along with my other stories looking for homes. This brings me to ten-ish (10) stories that are out and about, looking for their homes. Why -ish? Well, a couple of those stories counted and not counted are reprints, another is a drabble that I'm not settled with. Another has a very specific order-of-operations and isn't really available to just send out, or turn-around upon rejection, which is my usual motis operandi. Right at this moment, not everything that could be is out. And, gasp, I've got a couple stories under acceptable simultaneous submission! I find with ten stories, the turn-around is a little slower and I also consider simultaneous sub with less stress than it was. Querying UpdateQuerying, you say? Yes, last update after a year of querying and a (less than a paragraph) form rejection on a full request and so much silence from agents, I declared myself done querying one of my novels. Then a friend and champion of querying mentioned she was at 150 queries. Which sparked one of my few competitive drives. While I will not try to outcompete that, I have decided to at least get to 100 queries with my novel before setting it aside. In June, I began querying again. For the first ten months of querying, I made a policy to always have one dozen (12) queries out in the wild. I built up to that number within the first week or two. When a rejection came in, I sent another out. With the silence of agents in 2022, that method does not work at all. I'd never move forward with queries. I'm currently sending queries as I have the emotional and time bandwidth for it. Every rejection is still a knife in my heart (but I'd still the rejections than the silence). I'm currently at about twenty (20) queries out. We'll see how it goes. Until Next Time...I hope to have all sorts of good news by the 2022 goals wrap-up - short story goals submissions met, more acceptances, querying at least meeting my goal number if nothing else.
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I suggested lots of fiction during July. Most of it has been published this year, but every so often I dipped back a year or few. Here are the 21 stories I thought you might enjoy because I did.
The Coffe Cup Song by Cat Rambo published at Kittywumpus.
The Sunday Morning Transport published The Daily Commute by Sarah Gailey in July.
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