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End of June 2024 Round Up

Happy summer!

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far. I’m basking in the comfort of air conditioning and hard at work on my next writing project. While I’m happy to enjoy the sunshine, I don’t really like to sweat. Indoors I stay.

Let’s recap my writing news for the first half of the year and what I hope will be some achievements for the last half of the year.

In March, I decided to really try and get some stories out for submission. I made the commitment to submit five times a week. Although there was a week I didn’t make it, I made up for it and submitted extra the following week. As a result, in the month of April I got two acceptances. I was floored. I’d never had that happen before, but it motivated me to keep going.

One story (Siren Call) is already out. The other will be published this fall. After four years, it feels good to see some of my work out in the world again.

Also, I finally stopped procrastinating and self-published two of my previous short stories for Amazon Kindle (See the Published Works Page for the link). They came out so long ago that the rights have reverted back to me and I’m putting them back out into the world. I will do the same for my other stories too (both published and unpublished). I view my short stories as marketing for an eventual longer work. The short stories are cheaper and shorter in length, so if someone is unsure whether they want to buy a novel, they can buy a story and see if they like me.

And I am writing a novel. I still have a long way to go, but I’m making progress. Like I said, those two acceptances have been great for my motivation. I’m hoping to be done with a first draft by September 1st.

Also, I have four other short stories that either need to be finished or rewritten. I’d like to get them submitted too.

So, in the last half of the year, I have a novel draft to finish and four short stories to work on. I’d like to self-publish two more stories (one in 3rd quarter and one in 4th quarter), get two more acceptances, and have a complete draft of my novel. That’s a lot, but I like aiming at big goals.

Finally, I quit X (Twitter) last fall, but I have joined Instagram. Feel free to follow me here.

Hope everyone’s summer is fun and productive!