Adria Bailton, Author
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Musings from a Mountain

Short Fiction Round-Up #57

2/14/2022

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Here's the round-up of stories I suggested over on my social media last week. Enjoy!

Seen Small Through Glass by Premee Mohammed was published by Fireside Fiction this month.

Picture: The words Scratchers by Corey Farrenkopf is written in all caps, white text on a blue background.
The Arcanist published Scratchers by Corey Farrenkopf this month.

How to spot a mermaid by Emily Fox was published by Mermaids Monthly is 2021. 
Picture: Cover of December 2021 issue of Mermaids Monthly.

Picture: March/April 2020 cover of Uncanny Magazine
Uncanny Magazine published If Salt Lose Its Savor by Christopher Caldwell in 2020.

Unknown Number by Amanda Tong was published as a part of Santa's Secret Pen '21 prompt exchange.

Constelación Magazine published Unforgettable by Eduargo Martínez Báez, Translated by Toshiya Kamei in 2021.

The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births by José Pablo Iriarte was published by Lightspeed Magazine in 2018. 
Picture: Cover of Lightspeed Magazine issue 92, January 2018.
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Short Fiction Round-Up #56

2/7/2022

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Seven more stories for your weekly reading! Enjoy.

My Body by J.S. Jordon was published by Fireside Fiction in January.
Phases of the Moon by Alice Towey published by Fireside Fiction in 2021.

Picture: The words Bubbles by A.E. Lanier in white print on a teal background
The Arcanist published Bubbles by A.E. Lanier in January.

Rogue by Joanna Koch was published at Speculative City in 2020.
Picture: Cover of Issue 7 of Speculative City . A Black and white image of rubble of a city through a window.

Picture: Cover of December 2021 issue of Mermaids Monthly.
Mermaids Monthly published Which Inland Waterways Merfolk Are You? by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas and S.R. Mandel in 2021.

Beobeto Teketeke by JL Akagi was published by The Dread Machine in 2021.

Anathema Magazine published To Rise, Blown Open by Jen Brown in 2021.
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Short Fiction Round-Up #55

1/31/2022

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Posted a little late with a back-dated time. My Newsletter went out this week! If you don't catch all these blog posts or just want a highlight of stories, be sure to sign up. Every couple months I will send you my favorites out of a large listing.

Picture: Baffling Magazine logo
Our Days of Tear-Stained Glass by Avra Margariti was published by Baffling Magazine in 2021. 

Daily Science Fiction published All The Difference by David M. Barry in 2021.
Picture: Daily Science Fiction logo in green with a rocket.

Picture: Mermaids Monthly cover of December 2021 issue
What to Do After Receiving a Starlit Pearl by Mari Ness was published by Mermaids Monthly in 2021. 

Fireside Fiction published Those We See at the Twilight Bridge by Wendy Nikel in 2021.

To Seek Himself Again by Marie Croke was published by Apex Magazine in 2021.
Picture: Apex Magazine logo

Lightspeed Magazine published Story Kit by Kij Johnson in 2020, originally published in Eclipse Four in 2011.

Picture: Speculative City Issue 1 cover.
Monster Crossing by Rebecca Linam was published by Speculative City in 2018.
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Short Fiction Round-Up #54

1/24/2022

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Welcome to my fifty-fourth short fiction round-up! Please enjoy the seven stories this week.

Song of the Balsa Wood Bird by Katherine Quevedo was published this month by Fireside Fiction.

Daily Science Fiction logo
Daily Science Fiction published Shattered Petals of Celadon by M.K. Hutchins this month.

Here Be Monsters by Avra Margariti was published The Arcanist this month. ​
White words Here Be Monsters by Avra Margariti on a blue background.

Diabolical Plots logo
Diabolical Plots published Tides That Bind by Cislyn Smith this month.

Invisible Motels by Jeremy Packert Burke was published by The Deadlands in 2021.
Cover of The Deadlands Issue 6 October 2021. A skull peers out of a pond with lily pads obscuring it.

Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores published Ghost Blue, Ghost Red by Malda Marlys in 2021.

Cover of Issue 1 of Speculative City: Grotesque
Ramona by M.A. Bailey was published by Speculative City in 2018. ​
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Short Fiction Round-Up #53

1/17/2022

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Starting in Fall of 2020, I posted short fiction I'd been reading on my Twitter. Just about a year ago, I started posting story suggestions every day. It wasn't until February that I started posting round-ups here of the stories. I generally post weekly, but I posted nearly daily at first to catch-up. Here's to another year of daily story posting.

Pearl by Sarah Jackson was published by Tales from Between.
Tales From Between logo

Picture
Daily Science Fiction published I Mean, It's No Extra Parked Vehicle by Jenna Katerin Moran in 2021.

The remaining five stories posted last week all came from the Santa's Secret Pen 2021 prompt and story exchange posted in January.
  • The Wyrd and the Weaver by Erin Fulmer
  • Mistakes and Resolutions by Mel Grebing
  • Snow Camp by S.E. Baran
  • A fallen star finds love by Yvette Yun
  • Cinnamongate by Anthony Eden
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Short Fiction Round-Up #52

1/10/2022

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This week I suggested seven more stories in my daily story suggestion on Twitter and Facebook. Here's a summary.

Habeas Codex by Curtis C. Chen was published by Fireside Fiction in 2021.
Picture of people in white lab coats doing things against a city scape background.

Picture of a blue background with the words The Ground Here by Tyler Norton written in white.
The Arcanist published The Ground Here by Tyler Norton in 2021.

The Yellow Leaves by Joanna Koch was published by Tales From Between.
Picture of a path winding through trees covered in orange leaves.

Cover of Issue 6 of The Deadlands.
The Deadlands pubished All the Open Highways by Alexis Gunderson in 2021.

An Island in His Splendor by Christopher Caldwell was published by Baffling Magazine in 2021.
Baffling logo

PodCastle logo
PodCastle published We Are the Flower by Claire Humphrey in 2020.

Location, Location, Location by Xander Odell was published by Daily Science Fiction in 2021.
DSF logo
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Reading Reflection 2021

1/7/2022

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Reflection

On New Year's Day 2021, I posted what I thought were reasonable goals for my reading. They turned out to be overly ambitious.
  • I lost my login to Storygraph.
  • My reading rate dropped drastically. The 2018 - 50 books, 2019 - 100 books, 2020 - 30-40 books trend did not hold and I did not read 36 books - a plan of a fun book, a writing craft book, and a third category book. 
  • I did not read enough to give a "favorite" book of the month after the first couple months.
  • The recorded books didn't count the reads of unpublished work.
  • I read a ton of short work this year. Some weeks I really do post everything I read. But most weeks I read 2-5 times as many stories as I post.
Picture says 2021 Reading Challenge You read 8 out of 36 books. Better luck in 2022!

I'm going to try again for 2022. Goodreads wants me to read just even one book a month. I might take them up on that. But my reading goals are going to be much more flexible this year.
I need to write. Unfortunately, my reading time and writing time heavily overlap.
Thankfully, I've found my login to The Storygraph, so I can try to make fun graphs for you in the future!
Picture

2022 Goals

I will include unpublished work in my book counts but I need to figure out how to remember them. But I will aim to read at least one published book a month as well.
I will post a quarterly reading reflection. 
This wraps up my disappointing reading reflection for the year 2021 and my vague reading goals for 2022. 
Picture
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Short Fiction Round-Up #51

1/3/2022

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2021 wrapped up, but my daily short story recommendations on social media keep on with a blog summary every week. Here we go!

Terminal by Dona McCormack was published by Speculative City in 2020.
black and white picture of a figure against a bridge. The words

Tales From Between Logo
Tales From Between published There is No Bunk #7 by Patrick Barb. 

I, Cthulu, or, What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)? by Neil Gaiman was reprinted by Tor.com in December.

Plenitude Magazine published Growing Bodies by S.L.W. in December.
Plenitude - Your Queer Literary Magazine logo

August 2021 Issue 33 cover of Three-Lobed Burning Eye
Six Spiral Iterations of a Memory by R. K. Duncan was published by Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazine in 2021.

Apex Books & Apex Magazine published First Snow by Annie McAndrew in thier December Microfiction Patreon.

Dumi by AJ Hartson and Wakey Nelson was published by Mermaids Monthly in 2021.
Cover of November 2021 Issue of Mermaids Monthly
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Time for Magic

1/2/2022

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In late November, Amalie/A.R. Frederiksen posted a tweet about a short story exchange. 

Lately, I’ve witnessed a lot of my friends finding no joy in writing as they’re stuck in the query trenches or on sub. I’d love to change that, to end the year with everybody feeling inspired, and maybe you’ll help me?

Enter... SANTA'S SECRET PEN 2021!

?more info in thread? pic.twitter.com/PstQiuTukv

— Amalie/A. R. Frederiksen (@ARFrederiksen) November 22, 2021
It's me. I'm stuck in the query trenches where writing had lost its joy. And this exchange seemed perfect to get my writing joy back. I followed the thread instructions and sent off my prompt. On December 1, I received my prompt. 
Picture of aspens covered in snow. The words
I found writing in the week between Christmas and New Year's to be rejuvenating and fun. I produced a 2150-word story that I hope my Santa's Secret Pen 2021 partner will love!​

Mel Grebing received my prompt and produced a sweet little tale about a relationship in the lab space called Mistakes and Resolutions. 

Time for Magic by Adria Bailton

​ The horse plodded forward, its foreleg breaking the snowdrifts with power. Chelsea yanked at the lining of her hood, pulling it farther forward to protect her face from the fat falling flakes. She’d numbed to the chill hours ago. Who needed warming spells when she could just freeze away all feeling? The horse snorted as if it agreed with her assessment.
​
“That’s a good boy, Roger.” She leaned forward and patted the chestnut’s neck. “It’s not far now.”

Read More
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End of 2021 Goals and 2022 Goal Setting

12/31/2021

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Picture of a Typewriter with the word Goals typed on a sheet of paper
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
It's the last Friday of the year and time to assess my success at meeting my writing goals for the year and set new goals for 2022!
I posted my original goals at the end of 2020, and two updates-one in April and the other in August. 

Short Stories

Short Stories Written and Polished in 2021: 
My goal for 2021 was to write and polish thirteen (13) short stories. At the time, I had written and polished four (4) short stories in two months at the end of 2020 and had written more than one novel in 3-6 months in 2019-2020. A little more than one short story written and polished each month seemed feasible. I already had a dozen or more started. 
In 2021, I wrote and polished a total of seven (7) stories, falling short of my goal of a baker's dozen. The vast majority of these were written in the first quarter of 2021. Unfortunately, once I started querying my novel, it really stymied my creative flow and I was unable to write much. With everything I had available to edit, one would think I could work on those. But those stories needed many more words written and I was unable to complete them. I did not polish anything once I was back at work in-person full-time. My laptop was broken for most of the second half of the year.
​2021 wore on me in ways that 2020 did not.
This goal receives an incomplete ❌
Story Submissions in 2021: 
I submitted forty (40) stories this year, exceeding my goal of 39 submissions. 
​This goal recieves a success! ✔️
Rejections in 2021: My goal was for a 100% rejection rate on my submissions. I like this goal because it keeps me submitting. Plus, I win if I meet it and I win if I don't because it means I had some acceptances.
​I received thirty-seven (37) rejections and two (2) acceptances this year.
​This goal receives a success! ✔️
Acceptances in 2021:
I do not make acceptance goals because I have no control over those. However, it's the end of the year, and I will report my final numbers. I had two (2) acceptances in 2021.
Published Stories in 2021:
I published four (4) stories in 2021. Two were published by publications, one was published for a short time on my website for the Writer in Motion program, and one was published exclusively in my newsletter.
Stories under consideration at this moment: Seven.
Goal: Short Stories Written and Polished in 2022
In 2022, I'm reducing my polished for publication short story goal to ten (10). This is a story every five weeks. With the amount of stories I already have and am editing along with stories I want to write, I hope this goal is more attainable than my 2021 goal.
Picture of 9 post-it notes on a board with a hand applying the 9th.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Goal: Short Story Submissions in 2022
42
I'm pulling this number using some logic, math, and the fact that I managed 40 submissions this year and want to always increase my goals when possible. This is a little less than one submission per week.
Goal: Short Story Rejections in 2022
42
Picture of a notebook, pencil, ruler, coffee mug, and computer
Photo by Oli Dale on Unsplash

Novel

My goals for 2021 quickly went awry and have changed and morphed throughout the year. I learned how some techiques for querying worked for me and others did not. I also believe now that querying advice from before the pandemic is useful to a certain extent but can set expectations much too high for the landscape now. I'll let you peruse all the Twitter threads about publishing today to draw your own conclusions. 

​My goals for 2022
are vague to the point of not really being goals at all. Keep querying. Keep editing. Go with the flow.
I like the trimester approach to updating goals. I'll keep you posted and, of course, I'll shout from the rooftops should I become agented or have more stories published.
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    Author

    Writer of spec fic. 
    Flash published at Wyldblood Flash and Constelación Magazine.
    Currently querying a novel.

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