What a crazy ride this year has been! I’m grateful for all the love I got from my friends and also from casual readers of my two published stories (“The Christmas Wish” in the anthology Christmas Chaos and “Cry Uncle” — which gets its print and e-book publication today!) I’m also pleased to announce that somehow, in the final 30 hours of the year, I had a third story accepted for publication! It’s a novelette called “Meet Cute” and it will be out in the Summer of 2025 on a soon-to-be-announced platform. I’m extremely excited about this one, especially for how genre-defying and odd it is, yet apparently still not odd enough not to be published.
Never in my wildest dreams have I imagined a scenario where my writing hobby took flight the way it has this year. The most special thing about it has been telling stories that have resonated with people. Whether with friends in my writers’ critique group, or readers across the globe in Australia and beyond. It seems what I have to say has found purchase in people’s hearts, minds, and funny bones. That’s amazing, and I will never take it for granted! So little in life is guaranteed, and I’m privileged to have created something that has meaning for someone beyond myself. That’s magic, plain and simple.
Of course, it hasn’t come easily. Today I’m celebrating selling one story each in October, November and December. But I have been a devoted reader for 30+ years, and writer for the past 25. Although 2024 has been the year I began to take the craft seriously — even to the exclusion of playing video games and writing terrible raps about my crushing school debt! But yes, I submitted my first story for professional review on December 30, 2023 — one year ago. It was rejected a breezy 8 days later. That was discouraging, but I wrote another story and submitted it elsewhere. More defeat.
But then a remarkable thing happened: I wrote and submitted a third story, which got… rejected again. Except this time, there was a super nice note attached to the rejection email: turns out, they loved my story! In fact, they had short-listed it for inclusion in the anthology, but in the end it didn’t quite make final cut. I was understandably disappointed. This was to be a cannibalism-themed anthology whose sales would support a charity food bank in Philadelphia. And I still wasn’t good enough to be included. But I got closer than ever! The fire inside me burned brighter, and I took to my keyboard and wrote a fourth story. Then a fifth.
All in all this year, I completed writing and editing 27 short stories, and currently have 3 more that I’m thousands of words deep on but which aren’t quite there yet. Those 30 total stories include 2 novellas that I’m damn proud of that will hopefully see the light of day soon. Of the 27 finished stories, I submitted them to 35 different submission calls, and was rejected 16 times, ignored 7 times, and 2 of them had the publishers go defunct. But 3 got accepted! (Also, 7 are still technically awaiting a verdict). The math is all over the place, I know, but call me Katniss because it seems the odds are ever in my favor.
Not bad for a guy trying to maintain a loving and functional marriage, work a full-time career job, and earn his Master’s degree (for said career job). Writing was never a plan A for me; I know how unlikely it is to make a living off the written word. But as a creative outlet, as a way to connect with fellow weirdos in the horror and fantasy community, this has definitely paid dividends to spare.
Today, I’m a member in good standing of the Horror Writers Association, and my work is eligible (though probably not visible enough) to earn a nomination for the Bram Stoker Award® in the category of Outstanding Short Fiction. But again: the reward of this craft has been largely emotional, never fiscal or material. I have no idea how far this road takes me from here, but one thing I know for sure. This has been one thrilling joyride, and I hope it’s only the beginning.
