Writing Newsletter First Quarter 2023

 

In the first three months of 2023, I posted the stories “Going in a New Direction,” “Which is Worse?” “A Rising Tide,” and “We Might be in Trouble.” I also reposted the stories “You Can Do Better” and “Puppy Wuppy.” These were posted on my blogs, or other sites.  But in an attempt to get more visits to my website, I started posting a Monthly Story there.  These were “Resolved,” “Long Shot,” and “Work Smarter.”

“Work Smarter” may be a milestone.  Years ago, when I first started submitting stories, I kept track of the submissions in a notebook.  At some point, I entered it all into an Excel Spreadsheet that I’ve been updating for the past, fifteen or twenty years.  This “Submissions” list contains all the stories I’ve submitted to magazines, whether rejected or accepted, as well as all the stories I’ve self-published on blogs or in ebooks, as well as any story I’ve reposted.  But a few years ago, I figured it would be good to have a list of just stories that have been published.  In theory, it should have been easy to just cut out all the rejected or reposted stories, but somewhere along the way I goofed.  And it’s not a simple goof.  Like, story 100 matches in both lists, but 150 in one is 155 in the other, while 200 in one is 199 in the other.  If I had the energy and the time to go through and verify all the dates and everything, I’d … probably be better off putting that energy and time into actual writing.  Regardless, according to the “Submissions” list, “Work Smarter” is my 600th published story.  By the “Published” list, it’s 598.  So I’m in that general area.

Besides stories, I also published two haiku this quarter.  The first was on my Project Mushroom profile, while the second was on my regular Mastodon profile.

In my last Newsletter, I wrote about my Free Story Idea series of blogs.  This quarter I’ve added Lost Wallet, one For Black History Month, and The Chronicles of Alif.  I’ve also continued posting some #RandomStoryIdeas on my Mastodon profile.

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In March I started a new blog, Thompson’s Gardens.  The hope eventually is for it to track how much food our farm and garden produces in one year.  This year, and maybe next, will just be spent trying to figure out all the details to do that in a way that’s coherent.  If that sounds interesting, check it out.  Although, there’s no way to tell when there will be a lot of content there.

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For some good writing news, I have finally finished the first draft of The Uncapped Pen.  My current plan is to self-publish it sometime in May.  We’ll have to see if I can meet that.

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Image from Pixabay.