Random Writing Tips – Keep track of everything

 

I’ve been submitting/self-publishing stories for just over twenty years.  I think at first, I just kept track of things in a notebook, but I eventually decided to make an Excel document to keep track of everything.  I had the story’s title, where I submitted it, when I submitted it, when I heard back, and what the result was.  Later, I started keeping track of the stories that were published.  I did this by numbering them in the order they were published, as well as turning their entry red.  The importance of the numbering is that sometimes I’d submit a story somewhere and not hear back for over a month, during which time I was posting stories each week on my website. 

This worked well for years, but then I had a problem.  I’ve published hundreds of stories on my webpage – most are only a few hundred words – and I don’t remember them all.  One time I remembered writing a story about, I don’t know, aliens landing at Mardi Gras, but I couldn’t remember what the title was.  So I scrolled through story after story, until I finally found … “Party Planet,” or whatever.  Knowing that something similar would eventually happen again, I decided it would be nice to have, not detailed descriptions of every story, but something like “Aliens land at Mardi Gras,” which I could quickly search for and find. 

The easy thing to do would be to just add this on to the existing list, but I figured it would be nice to have a list of just my published stories in the order they were published.  I got to work and soon had a list, and then I had to go to the story, refamiliarize myself with it, then write up a blurb.  And that should have been it.

Unfortunately, I made a mistake somewhere.  Well, a couple of mistakes.  Like, #500 on my Submissions List is #502 on my Publications List.  But, #400 is #399, and #300 is #301.  This isn’t a new problem.  I made my Publications List several years ago, so I’ve known of this mismatch.  Unfortunately, fixing this issue is #439 on my “It would be nice to do this someday list,” and I have a thousand things on my, “I should do list,” not to mention the thousand things on my, “To do list.”

A couple years ago, when I was getting close to publishing my 600th story, I figured I should go through and find my mistakes to know which story it was.  But life happened and I never did.  And now I’m inching closer to Number 700, and I figured I should really get to it, this time.  For sure.  Part of my forcing myself to do this, was to write this post about the importance of keeping track of your stories.  I could explain the issues I have, and then in a few months I can do an update about how I finally sat down and did the work and can finally say exactly how many stories I’d published.   

Well, I have starting redoing both lists.  I’m redoing both to make sure I don’t miss anything.  I’ve barely started, and I’ve already found a couple mistakes.  I have no idea how long this project will take, because I’m also doing something else.  In an early draft of this post, I mentioned that I had published over 600 stories, and while that sounds impressive, probably half of them are under 500 words.  And then I realized it would be nice to know how many of stories are under 500 words, or over 5,000 or whatever category I want to put them in.  So now I’m redoing both lists, and then also hunting down the stories and seeing how long they are.  This is a project I’ll slowly be working on for months.  Will I finish it before #700?  Only time will tell. 

So if you’re a beginning writer, I’d say start keeping track of everything you can, because someday you’ll wish you had.  And going back to do it all later can be super annoying.

***

Image from Pixabay.

Writing in these dark times

I’m trying to write more microfiction stories.  For one, I can post them on Mastodon or Bluesky making them a nice way for people to find out about me (here is a page with all the ones I’ve published) and two, I’m slowly working on a collection of 1,001 microfiction stories, and it takes some time to write that many.  Last week I came up with an idea dealing with the current state of the world, when I ran into a wall, and I haven’t quite figured out how to move on.

The idea for the story is pretty simple.  Some guy is at home on the couch when someone bangs on the door – instead of using the doorbell – and shouts, “ICE, open up.” The guy gets up, starts recording on his phone, and opens the inner door.  Outside the screen door is some masked asshole in camo, but before he could say anything, the owner says, “Fuck off.  I don’t want any of your Fascist Scout Cookies.” He then slams the door as hard as he could.

I came up with the idea, and hoped it would bring a smile to someone’s face.  And then I ran into the reality wall.  Because, as a white guy from Pennsylvania, I – possibly – could get away saying something like that to the Istapo.  But Juanita from Puerto Rico?  She’d probably be pulled through the screen door, or maybe just shot. 

I live in the middle of nowhere, in a very red part of Pennsylvania.  So there’s little chance I’ll have a run in with ICE.  And I’m broke, so I can’t really support financially those that are standing up to these goons.  For the longest time, I thought my role would be writing stories making fun of the fascist assholes, or stories set in a better world that we could aspire towards.  That’s great and all, but it really feels like it’s not enough.  Or worse, what if the next ICE execution video we see is someone saying, “I don’t want any of your Fascist Scout Cookies,” before slamming the door as the goon goes into hyper-rage.  That would destroy me. 

And that’s where I am right now.  I want to write to help the cause, but I don’t know what I can write that could help.  And my normal stories of aliens and time travel just feel, at best, pointless and at worst, a distraction. 

My writing plans for 2026

In 2025, my basic writing plan was to post a story each month on my website, one each month on one of my blogs, and one each quarter on my Ko-fi page.  That works out to seven stories every three months.  Not all of these stories were new, but still it turned out to be a lot.  I ended up missing a few months from general writing burnout, as well as stress from my personal life as well as the general collapse of society.  So for 2026, I’m going to make a bit of a change.  The first is I’m stopping doing a story each month on my website, and instead will only do one each quarter.  I’ll also only do a story each quarter on one of my blogs as well as on Ko-fi.  I’m also planning on trying to do a story each quarter on my Buy Me A Coffee page.  I set this up years ago, but never did anything with it.  But on the off chance I might make a few bucks off it, I figured I’d try it out.  So instead of working on seven stories each three months, I’ll only have to do four.  Hopefully, this will lead to better quality as well as less stress.  As well as more time for me to work on other projects.

One of my goals for 2025 was to finish up my Lunar Dreams project, which is essays on how we could colonize the moon.  I, unfortunately, didn’t get much done with this.  Besides all the drama of a collapsing society, there was also the point that I originally planned to release it on Amazon.  But in the last few years, it seems fewer people are buying books from Amazon.  I understand that, but it also sucks because that’s were all my books are.  I need to diversify, and I have checked out Draft2Digital, but I’d like to test the waters a bit before launching a big project there.  So my plan for 2026 is to self-publish two stories on Draft2Digital and see how they go before deciding if I want to do Lunar Dreams there.  These two stories I wrote years ago, but there are some clunky bits I need to hammer out before I post them. 

Those are my plans for 2026.  Hopefully, by the end of the year we’ll have stopped our slide into darkness.  I don’t want my plans for 2027 to just be to survive.

Writing Newsletter Fourth Quarter 2025

 

This quarter, I wrote “Same War, Different Tactics” and “The Next Problem” as part of my Monthly Stories.  Again, there were only two stories because I was burned out.  So next year I’m doing something different, which I’ll discuss more when I put up my 2026 Writing Plans post sometime in early January.  My Ko-fi post for this quarter was my story “Sign of the Times.” And on one of my blogs, I posted the stories “A Collapse We Can Dance To” and “The Santa Shakes.”

#

If I counted correctly, this quarter I posted two new microfiction stories while also reposting two.  I also posted six new haikus and reposted two more.  The microfictions can be found on my Untitled Works Page, and the haikus on my Haiku Page. 

#

Last quarter, I wrote about hopefully polishing up a story to post on Draft2Digital, but that didn’t happen.  That’s now part of my 2026 plans, which, as I said, I’ll be discussing in a future post.

#

Like most people, my 2025 plans were ruined by a handful of assholes.  Hopefully, 2026 will be the year we ruin their plans.

***

Image from Pixabay.

A Stranger Things prediction

My plan had been to wait until early December then start my Stranger Things rewatch doing an episode or two each day so that I would get to the final episode just as it came out.  But I ended up starting early because I wasn’t feeling well and just needed to watch something.  I believe I was watching the end of Season 2 when the first part of Season 5 came out.  Since then, I’ve caught all up and watched some reactions to Season 5 as well as some theory videos.  While some of the theory videos I’ve seen have gotten close, I haven’t seen anyone actually predict this.

First off, at some point during my rewatch of Season 3, I wondered how the show would end and where would the characters end up.  And I had the idea of there being a bit of a time jump and we’d see what the characters were doing in a few years.  For example, we’d see Will going to college.  He meets his roommate, who is impressed with Will’s art or something, and then, somehow, we figure out the roommate is gay, and we’d be left with the idea that Will may have finally found someone. 

But after watching the first part of Season 5, I’m pretty sure Will is going to die.  Because I think either El or Will have to die for the show to show that it’s serious.  I think they are the only ones that could do that.  Killing anyone else – Steve, Joyce, even Mike – I feel would just be killing a character just to kill a character.  Like, Steve dying would wreck Dustin, but I don’t really see that as a big enough series changing event.

The reason I think it’s going to be Will, is I’m not sure Will is gay.  I think it’s possible Will only loves Mike.  Possibly not even in a sexual way.  I don’t want to try to label what Will is, because I’m sure Will doesn’t fully understand it, and it’s possible he could have met someone later in life that he could have developed similar feelings for.  But what I think will happen is Will will basically take a bullet for El, not so much to save her, but to save Mike the heartache of losing her.  I think that something that Capital T Tragic is the right amount of bitterness the show needs for a proper ending.  It ticks the box of a major character dying to show things are serious, and it’s a death that will affect a lot of people in different ways.  It will hurt Joyce and Jonathan the most, but then Hopper has a more or less stepchild’s death to deal with, Mike and El will have to deal with what he did for them, and Robin will have lost a burgeoning friend.  And if his death is somehow witnessed by the kids of Hawkins, they’ll have to deal with how they bullied this kid who still went on to save them.

Or, a better/worse than death way to do it, is they discover that to truly end everything, someone needs to seal the worlds off from one another.  And it can only be done from the Upside Down and whoever does it isn’t coming back.  El is going to do it, but while she and Mike share what they think will be their last embrace, Will rushes past and start closing it.  Possibly even singing, “Should I stay or should I go now?  If I go there will be trouble, And if I stay it will be double.”

Or maybe everyone dies.  I guess we’ll know in a few weeks.

My best story?

Many years ago, I had an idea and hammered out a story of maybe 200 words.  I don’t remember exactly how I felt about it at the time, but I’m sure I thought it was a very good little story.  I think part of why I wrote it was I needed more stories for my first collection, A Man of Few Words, and it was a perfect one to include.  In the years since then, I’ll occasionally dig it out and reread it, and at some point, I started thinking of it as my best story.  I’ve written longer stories, and stories with more meat to them, but this one has like the most impact per word. 

For years, I’ve taken some pride in it; it is my best story after all.  But lately, I’ve started to wonder: did I already peak with my writing?  I like to think that my writing has gotten better over the years, but then why hasn’t a new best story appeared?  Or is it just my best flash fiction story, and I should try to figure out what my best short story is and when I wrote it?  Or should I stop worrying about such things and just write? 

Writing Newsletter Third Quarter 2025

 

This quarter, I wrote “Too Stupid” and “Sacrifices Must Be Made” as part of my Monthly Stories.  The reason there’s only two stories, is I didn’t post one in September.  I started two or three stories, but didn’t finish any because of burnout, and probably a few other reasons.  But the most recent story I started – which still doesn’t have a title – I’m 99.9% certain I’ll finish it up and post it as my October story.  My Ko-fi post for this quarter was my story “Perchance to Dream.” On one of my blogs, I posted the stories “Bated Breath” and “The Fall,” as well as reposted the story “Star-Spangled Ploy.” I also posted the poem “Nighttime Vision” on my Mastodon profile.

#

If I counted correctly, this quarter I posted one new microfiction as well as reposted one.  I also posted two new haiku, and reposted three.  The microfictions can be found on my Untitled Works Page, and the haikus on my Haiku Page.  The low numbers are a result of general writing burnout, as well as 114 other projects in the garden and around the house.  Not to mention all the videos, and shows, and videos about the shows that somebody has to watch.

#

I’ve been meaning to polish up a story and post it on Draft2Digital, but hopefully things will slow down enough in this next quarter that I’ll finally get around to it.

***

Image from Pixabay.