Novel: Lust and Submission
Lust and Submission is out and about! I am trying to market this, but I do feel super shy and awkward. I need to push harder further. I have set up an author platform on both Instagram and TikTok with the plan to post every single day (I heard this is the minimum of what is needed). Two out of three posts are a writing lifestyle/random story post, with the third more of a sales post. It is very nerve wracking and time intensive, but I wil give it a red-hot go and see whether it gets word about my products and platforms out there a smidge more.
Book Two (title not yet revealed) of Lust and Submission is complete. I have sent this to Blueberry Lane Books to see if they are in a position to publish this piece as well. Fingers crossed!
Short Stories and Novella News:
Feb 2023: CONTRACT PENDING! Short story (2500 words) accepted for publication! Contract and details of the piece and the magazine to come. NEW magazine, and NEW genre (more lit fix than spec fic).
Jan 2023: NEAR MISS! Most publishing opportunities will give you a timeframe of when you can expect a response, and invite a query after that. I queried a piece in 2022. The publisher explained via email that I should have received a rejection. I resubmitted the piece elsewhere, and it was published. Jan 2023, and the first publisher contacts to check the piece was still available. Sounds like there was a glitch in their system - that piece had always been shortlisted and they were keen to publish it! Unfortunately, this particular place could not accept reprints, so my story was no longer a match. But, I'm going to take as a win. They DID like it and they WOULD have published it :-)
Jan 2023: CONTRACTED: A longer piece has been contracted for a magazine in April 2023. This is a magazine I have been submitting pieces to (unsuccessfully) for years. They asked for some edits in 2022, which I submitted with help from my stellar beta reader buddy JP. It looks like there was a glitch and the contract didn't find its way to me. Contract is now signed! Magazine and genre reveal pending. Watch the "published" page for details!
Dec 2022: SHORT-LISTED: A new piece has been short-listed by a fantastic magazine that I have been aiming for for some time. They advised my piece made it through THREE sets of readers. It is now on hold, to be considered by the editors. Only one in 20 pieces that are "on hold" makes it into this magazine. Even so, I am going to take this as a win!
2022: CONTRACTED: An anthology open call accepted not one but THREE of my reprints for its upcoming project. The contract is signed. Anticipated release date, December 2022, but it looks like there are some delays. It feels like it was a very ambitious project, with the number of pieces they were looking to include.
- Publisher/anthology reveal coming soon
- Cover reveal coming soon
I'm watching their website and socials weekly. No update on whether this is happening...
What's in the pipeline?
My goal for 2023 continues to be: to have many things published in many places.
2022 ended on a beautiful note with eight pieces published that calendar year (a novel, a podcast, four magazines and two anthologies).
Novels:
- Four completed novels in the editing/beta reader/submission stage. I continue to polish and improve these whilst I chase opportunities for publication.
- I completed a fresh new piece for NaNoWriMo 2022, a 100k novel that is refreshingly different - its... comedy spec-fic! Well. Hopefully it's funny. It cracks ME up. It needs a lot of editing, which I have started. My plan is to have it to beta readers early 2023, and ready for submission by the middle of 2023.
- I plan to complete or write ANOTHER novel or novella for NaNoWriMo 2023!
Short stories/Novellas:
- One longer short story/novella completed (20k words) and in the editing/beta reader submission stage. This is a piece of adventure fantasy.
- My goal this year is to have 20-25 pieces (shorts, novels and reprints) out chasing oportunities at all times. Which means: no more sooking over rejections.
- I intend to continue to improve my writing and step outside my contemporary urban fantasy comfort zone and dabble in other genres, including: lit fic, fantasy, horror and fantasy/adventure. I also plan to work on adding diversity to my POV characters. Short stories are a fantastic place to explore characters, genres, worlds and practice new things! Will it work? Lets see what gets published!!!
There's also a lot of writing... ideas, fragments, half-completed pieces with their wheels off and grass growing over them and crickets chirping. Every now and then I stab my toe tripping over an old piece and kick the muse into gear :-)