Hello friends! It’s been a little bit, how are you? The last couple of months have been going well for me! I have been focusing on engaging with the writing community on Instagram (psst, you should totally follow me there). I also found a lot of wonderful writers on Threads (psst, psst, you should totally follow me there too). I’ve been making friends and talking about the ups and downs of writing.

This led to finding open submission calls for small presses, indie publishers, and fellow authors. I had a short story sitting unfinished on my computer that would fit one of these calls perfectly. I got motivated to finish it (which was so close to being done – what a shit writer I am). I finished the story, edited it, and took the leap of sending off this weird piece of my soul into the unknown.

I also found another call for a charity anthology that spoke to me. I wanted to be a part of this so badly. I wrote a story, edited it, and sent off another piece of my soul into the unknown. The wait for hearing about acceptance or rejection wasn’t long. It was ACCEPTED. I was floored. I was shooketh. My short story about a sex doll coming to life to exact revenge on her owner was accepted (Check out the anthology here 😉proceeds go to a good cause). Among these ten stories and ten authors, I am one of them!

This completely proved to me that I am on the right (write, heh) path and that I do have some amount of talent. But, I was still waiting to hear about the first story I sent off. This was to a small publisher who releases anthologies regularly. They are bigger, thus more submissions to read. More submissions to accept and reject.

Then, I got an email. My short story about a child creating a monster was ACCEPTED. I was floored again. I was shooketh again! Which can be found here. Look at that cover art! It’s phenomenal! And if you look at the back, my name is among others! My name is on a book! WOW! I don’t know how many people submitted to this issue but there are so many authors and I am one of them!

All this good news really kept me motivated to keep writing my psychological horror novel – Semblance. I am so happy to say that I finished the first draft recently. It is so messy. New characters barged in demanding to be known. To be explored. I love it. If all goes well, I plan on having a release date for Halloween 2025. I want to have a more organized draft before I start sharing more about the novel and the characters. Some of my fellow author friends also have release dates for next Halloween, so it’s nice and motivating to keep each other accountable (I really need it).

Since then, I have been finding other open calls and writing short stories for them. Two I have missed deadlines for, but still finished each story. This is something I am trying really hard to do. Finish what I start writing. It can be hard because sometimes I get Imposter Syndrome and think what I have sucks. And it does. But that’s why we revise and edit. So it sucks less. As I was missing these deadlines, I also came across a flash fiction contest by Weird Wide Web (Totally check them out! They are great!) about strange behavior. The story had to be 600 words or less. I was interested in the contest but also scared about the word count. I felt that I couldn’t tighten my words. That, I couldn’t tell a good enough story in so little. I mean, look, I’m wordy and rambly!

Again, I took that leap, some how wrote a flash fiction story in the allotted word count, and sent this new piece of my soul to be judged. Contests and open calls just hit different. Well, I got an email. I was one of ten winners for this contest! I was floored again again. I was shooketh again again! AND I won $10! I got money for my writing. This was becoming a dream come true. (Read my flash fiction, “Red” and all the other winning stories here).

I will not lie. There was a small voice in the back of my head telling me that maybe these acceptions were a fluke. That maybe there weren’t enough people and I just happened to even out the numbers. Until I listened to the podcast Lindsey of Weird Wide Web did talking about the contest (She and her cohosts are great! Listen to the podcast!). In the podcast, she said that there were over 110 entries. 110+. And I was one of the winners. More flooring! More shookething! She really helped me see that I am not as shitty as a writer as I think. I am so grateful to everyone who has given me and my stories a chance to be out in the world. I will continue to put them out there. I know rejections will come, that is just part of this journey. But I won’t let that deter me. And neither should you! If you love to write, keep writing! Get it out there! You just need to find the right people! They are out there.

Until next time~