I have 7 stories that are finished and ready for something to be done with them. I have to stop sitting on them as if they’ll get better if I look away for a while. I’m not getting much writing done this summer, and I’m allowing myself that for now. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be doing anything.
New challenge. Submit to magazines or publish all 7 stories by July 31st. That gives me a whole weekend to work with plus a few days. I just need to set myself a reasonable goal and get my butt in the publishing/submitting seat.
Which doesn’t make it any easier. I’m not sure where I might submit some of the stories and I’m still hesitant (scared?) to self publish shorter works. I could see doing maybe the 8000 word short story as a standalone, but not the 4000 or less ones. And they aren’t all genre stories. And I am so good at making excuses!
So instead of working on stories or even covers, I played around with photos on Gimp, trying to combine two shots, one focused on a road and another on a distant mountain. It looks pretty neat, but it isn’t what I wanted to be doing.
I know these stories that I’ve written since finishing the Depth workshop have better openings than stories I’ve written before, but is that enough? My husband liked them, but he likes everything!
So I have thrown down my own gauntlet and I’ll just do it. I’ll get some covers together and put the longer stories up. The shorter ones too if I can’t find a market to submit to. Just do it. No one is going to punish me for trying.