Writing Report July 6, 2019

As of this writing, I have 35 short stories (well, 34 and 1 novella) in circulation.

Fifteen can be lumped in the sci-fi bin, six are fantasy / dark fantasy (I rarely write horror per se), ten are crime / thriller stories (both grim and comic; I rarely write conventional whodunit type mysteries), the rest could be lumped as mainstream (typically with O. Henry-style twists).

In several cases the genre stories overlap enough with what is called “literary” fiction for them to be suitable for those markets as well.

But markets changed drastically in the last half century (i.e., over the course of my career).

When I started submitting stories to sci-fi magazines in the 1960s and 70s, I simply started with the best paying markets and worked my way down.

If I sent a story to Analog and they hadn’t responded by the time I got the next story finished, I sent that one off as well.

Now many markets don’t want to see more than one submission at a time.

So if Analog had not bought or rejected a story I’ve already sent them, the next story needs to go somewhere else.

Okay, fine; Analog is not the only top rank sci-fi market.

But the problem is almost all markets have now limited themselves to only one submitted story from a writer at a time.

I set a personal goal for myself to have at least 100 stories professionally published in my lifetime (17 professionally published so far, five purchased but not yet published; I’m not counting TV or comic book work).

I set a secondary goal on January 1stof this year to write a short story every week (19 so far, not 27, but still a good clip).

So basically, I’m running out of markets.  

I’m submitting newer stories to lower paying markets because I’m backlogged at better paying ones.

(I know, I know: Write novels.  
Easy to say, but currently it’s hard
for me to find large unbroken bocks
of time to dedicate to such writing;
short story first drafts can be blitzed out
in a single afternoon or evening,
novels require longer periods of
concentration.)

© Buzz Dixon