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Building My Garden – Beginning of September 2024

Happy Fall!

I spent the summer doing all things writing. I finally uploaded two stories that had been published years ago and one story I uploaded in my chapbook in 2015. I thought about it a long time and decided to unpublish the collection. I will be uploading most of these stories later on this year. I think it is better to offer each on its own and let the reader decide whether or not they want to read them. Each short story will be $3.49. In January, I’ll evaluate if I should change anything or continue.

I also was able to finish another new story that leans a little long. I’m warming up for the new novel and I wanted to finish this story I started last year. I knew it was going to be long beacause usually my short stories are about 1500 – 3000 words. I think this story is double (?) the words. We’ll see…

So, three stories self-published, one completed short story, and plans for at least one more self-pubbed story and one traditional story to come out this year. For the rest of the year, I’m going to push for a finished first draft of the novel.

This month marks the ten-year anniversary of my first fiction story being published. I remember being so proud of myself for finally getting something out into the world and feeling like I was a real writer. Cut to ten years later, I have published five stories traditionally and (now) three stories self-pubbed. It is not a huge amount of work, but it’s not nothing. In some ways, I’m a bit disappointed I haven’t done more. Comparison is the thief of joy and seeing other writers rack up the publication credits is tough to see. Of course I am happy for them, but seeing the slow progress of myself is, at times, depressing.

However, I have found a new mantra to help motivate me and bring me out of depression.

A few weeks ago, I was watching one of those on-line guru videos on YouTube and I read a comment that stuck with me. It read, “If you want a butterfly, don’t chase butterflies. Build a beautiful garden.” I decided that this would be my plan going forward. I wasn’t going to worry about individual publications, or what anyone else was doing in their writing. Instead, I was going to build a metaphorical garden for my writing career. Story after story. One story was not going to get me what I wanted, but a collection of stories would. I will build my garden flower by flower, plant by plant. In the end, I I hope to have a beautiful garden filled with stories that I love.

Going forward, I’m just going to link my Amazon Author page in the Published Works section of this site. Any traditionally published stories will still be listed too.

Happy writing! (And gardening!)