2020 New Decade, New Year
Blog: 01 January 2020: Looking Back, Looking Forward
The start of a new year is a good time for reflection. Look over the past year to consider if you achieved everything you set out to and plan for the future.
My Published Stories Outside Medium
Last year one of my aims was to get published outside Medium with the idea that I could then “reprint” here. I just about managed that goal with one story, Driving Home for Christmas.
Put into perspective it’s one 100-word story in an anthology of 300, by a publisher (Black Hare Press) with six similar anthologies. But, this will always count as my first sale.
At time of writing they are looking for more stories (make sure you scroll down).
Submitting to Adlers Writing
We trialled open submissions to Adlers Writing.
Alas this was short lived. Due, in part, to problems with my PC, but mostly I didn’t much like the responsibility of rejecting submissions. This is what being an editor is all about so I do need to accept it and will review later in the year. For those I rejected, sorry. It is just one persons view if a story will be a good “fit” for a particular publication and is not a reflection on you or your writing.
Having been rejected myself, many times, and as editor do the rejecting, I have seen both sides. You just have to keep writing and keep submitting until one day, finally, you reach the goal of acceptance and publication. Then feel the elation and relief — somebody loves you and your story.
Series
One of the biggest bugbears of 2019 on Medium was series!
Once series notifications stopped they became irrelevant to PC Users. One word of suggestion to the powers that be — consider allowing it to be landscape instead of just portrait. For a PC user it is easier to read a 50-word story in landscape than portrait.
2020 The Year Ahead
New year, new decade and my personal plans are:
- Read more fiction. In 2019 I read or listened to some 20 novels. I plan to increase that to two a month — 26.
- Consider joining Goodreads — I should be reviewing/writing about the books I read. Even if it’s just brief notes it will be good to corral my thoughts better.
- Write more fiction. I’ve written very little new stuff over the past year, and only developed a couple of stories written two years ago! I try to position myself into situations where I must write. I got some good stories from last year’s AND this year’s Secret Santa Story Writing (a group of people get together to secretly write a story on a music prompt for one other person). Also, write longer fiction. My writing seems to be getting longer anyway, so this might be easy. Review writing for woman’s magazines, I like to read HEA (Happy Ever After) will I like to write it? I won’t know unless I try. I need to get into a (good) writing habit!
- Submit more. I could submit to all and sundry and not worry about it. But, it’s surely better to target submissions? So, I need to review more journals to see if they are suitable for the kind of stuff I produce. I just don’t like the feel of a lot of the journals I’ve reviewed, stories are quickly buried under masses of others! I also have a view there should be some payment, even if it’s just nominal. I may have to relax this stipulation as there aren’t that many paying publications.
More of the same, pretty much.
Medium Publications
I have favourite publications on Medium (Lit Up, The Junction, Midnight Mosaic Fiction, The Mad River amongst others) but a new one has recently joined them, The Friday Fix. It only publishes 50-word stories, so I’m naturally attracted to it. You should know I have just placed the nonsense story Twister! with them. They also run story prompts.
There are new publications popping up all the time and I try to keep the list of Medium: Fiction Publications up to date. All publications showing fiction or poetry that I know about are listed. Well over 100 active publications.
Personal Publications
One thing we don’t list are Personal Publications (publications with just
one or two authors). There are some very good ones. One author that deserves to be read more is Nicole Willson, catch her 50-Word Horror Stories Vol. 2.
Microfiction on Medium
Here are the numbers of stories tagged Microfiction on Medium, each month over the past year:
— — — — — — — ToT — — Pay — -Free
January . . 2019 . . . . 55 . . . . 16 . . . . 39
February . . . . . . . . . . 62 . . . . 43 . . . . 19
March . . . . . . . . .. . . . 60 . . . . 46 . . . . 14
April. . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 . . . . 66 . . . . 60
May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66. . . . .41 . . . . 25
June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 . . . . 43 . . . . 17
July. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 . . . . 60 . . . . 21
August . . . . . . . . . . . 132 . . . 106 . . . . 26
September . . . . . . . . 106 . . . . 81 . . . . 25
October. . . . . . . . . . . 183 . . . 150 . . . . 33
November. . . . . . . . . 142. . . .123 . . . . 19
December . . . . . . . . . . 85 . . . . 56 . . . . 29
— - — — — — — — ToT — — Pay — -Free
December has been a quiet month for Microfiction. There are now 1.6k stories tagged Microfiction.
Competition
One upcoming competition that may be of interest is the Green Stories Flash Fiction Competition. Free to all. Max 500-words. Closing date 21st March 2020 — Good luck if you enter.
Adlers Writing just hit 500 followers, thank you to all followers/readers, new and old. Whatever you plan for the coming year, may we take this opportunity to wish you a happy and prosperous 2020.
‘Till next time
Stevie
