Tag: Writers

  • Pretty Much My Last Blog Post of 2023

    I think that will be true. We are getting down to crunch time for the Holidays; the kid will be off from school, and soon the wife will be taking her Christmas vacation from work. Then we do have some traditions around the City we like to take part in, so the time to blog is growing short. And as such, this might be the last one I write for the year.

    Not that anyone is asking for this, and I am talking to the couple of you who stop by this blog, but I’ll post a Best of 2023, as well as some Holiday videos for Christmas and New Year’s. Once the kid and wife are back in school, I will resume the normal blogging schedule.

    As for 2023, it wasn’t a bad year…

    On the writing front, I submitted to 50+ magazines, and got accepted in one. I had planned on sending out to 100, and only then did I hope that maybe I’d get a bite. So, I’ll chalk that up as a win. I have three stories out there that I am waiting to hear on, so I guess there is still hope. The blog readership grew this year, which was unexpected to say the least. Most days, I feel like I am talking to myself in the dark, and lets be honest, that’s a rather true description. Yet, I averaged 5 readers a day in 2022, and in 2023 that grew to 20. I’m sure there are some Russian bots in those numbers, but some of you are real. Also, looking at the numbers, if you stop by this blog, you’re reading the Short Story Reviews, and not many of the other things I write about. (I don’t get any likes for my Tottenham posts, but I’m still going to write about my club.) I will say this about the reviews, which is that I have read more short stories this year than any other year of my life. I have discovered many new online lit journals which are great, and most importantly, I have read so many great new writers. I could do a better job about promoting these journals and writers, and perhaps that should be a goal for myself in 2024. I was hesitant in 2023 as I was writing and submitting myself, and I had this idea that it could be considered a conflict of interest. Then I reminded myself that no one knows who I am, no one cares, so I should just relax.

    On the other personal fronts; my wife is good, the kid is healthy and doing well in school, and life in the City isn’t too bad. There will always be things that I need to work on so I can be a better husband and father, and friend, and son, and brother. I’ll still be pulling for the Dallas Cowboys to win the Super Bowl this year, and I would be happy with Tottenham just qualifying for the Champions League. Cubs are the Cubs, so I’ll be happy with a winning season. It would be good if I got back to sketching more, and maybe I should complete a book or some art project in 2024. Who knows…

    But, in the end, I would like to say thank you to the 20 of you, if you are real, who look at this thing each day. You do validate my existence, and that’s a pretty nice thing to do for someone. Especially when it’s a middle-aged guy still trying to figure things out and expressing… opinions about stuff. Anyway, I appreciate it.

    Have a good Holidays and I’ll talk to you soon.

  • 4 Lit Journals/Magazines I’m Liking Right Now

    I did this a while ago, and it seems right that I should do this again.

    Maybe I’m trying to get published in these places, maybe I’m not. Either way, I’m enjoying the work they are putting out, and if you haven’t, you should check them out.

    In No Particular Order:

    1. SmokeLong Quarterly – Flash fiction journal

  • Checked That Box

    For those of you that read this blog, and follow me on Twitter/X (all two of you), then you know that I had an announcement yesterday, which was that Rejection Letters published a piece of mine – “Memorably Forgettable.” I have been a fan of this journal for a while, and I really appreciate that they included me in their publication; very cool.

    And as such, I checked off a box on my list of goals for this year – Get One Story Accepted.

    I was prepared to get deep in rejections for this year, as I have received 50 of them so far. I do prescribe to the “100 No’s Before 1 Yes” theory, and as such still feel like there is a lot of rejection out there for me to receive yet. (My Submittable cup runneth over…)

    But, more importantly, I gotta get back to work. I still got a blog to write, a journal to fill up, and a corner in my apartment to sit in and try to make some stories work. And I should be reading more, to be honest.

  • Updating My Site

    It was long overdue, but I have started the process of updating my website. It has been nagging at me for a while now – that my page is rather basic, and not the best showing of who I am. The more I blog, and submit stories, the more that I know that people will be coming by to see what I am all about. My numbers are up, by the way. I have equaled the total views of 2022, in the first six months of 2023. So, there is more traffic on my site. Sure, maybe half of it is bots for China and Pakistan, but still…

    Updating my website, and talking about myself are not my strong suits. Doing all of this makes me very self-conscious, and after a few minutes of working on it, I end up feeling frustrated and embarrassed. Frustrated because the look of my website never feels “professional” enough, and embarrassed because I can’t shake this thought in the back of my head that “why the fuck would anyone care what I have to say?” Now, I know that the more effort I put into the site, the better it will look, and who the fuck cares what anyone thinks?

    Oh! I did sign up for AdSense, so ads will now be on the site. I hate to brag, but after a day, I have earned nearly a whole penny! The other reason for doing this is that I haven’t found a good side hustle yet. I might start dog walking soon, unless the traffic keeps growing on this site, then all bets are off.

    In the end, I’m probably going to keep monkeying around with this site off and on for the next month. I’m open to suggestions of what to do, or who’s sites I should check out for inspiration, so drop me a comment or message. And you might as well “like” and “subscribe” while you are at it.

  • Research and Submission Day

    I am limited on what I can do today. Between chores, and school obligations, and watching the kid, and having to go to bed early, as I have an early morning tomorrow, I don’t have a large resource of time to work with. That is why I am looking up online journals, and submitting stories to them.

    I mean, I also want to get a blog in, clearly.

    But I do like the rabbit-hole game you can play online with writers, and discovering magazines they have written for. I have subscribed to several online lit journals, which means I get a couple emails a day for new works that have been published. I discover new writers this way, and in their bio’s, usually, is a list of other places they have been published. I select a publication I haven’t heard of before, read a story on their site, which will lead me to that author’s bio. And the game starts all over again. It can eat up a good chunk of your day if you are not careful. I set a time limit for myself.

    I will digress for a second, as I would like to say a word about writer’s bio’s. As a theatre guy who has written thousands of bio’s for myself, it was drilled into me that this was the one shot you have to sell yourself to the audience and, potentially, your next job. It is very difficult to sum up your career in 50 to 100 words, but those of you who use this space to share your sense of humor; you are my heroes. Shine on you crazy diamonds!

    Outside of someone publishing me, the thought that I subscribe to is that I need to get 100 no’s before I get my first yes. Right now, I am at “no” #36 for the year. I got some work ahead of me.