We’ll keep it short and sweet.

Submission process: I’m still debating between the two suggested markets that I mentioned last week. The deadline is frustrating, even though the story is ready. I just have to pick the market I think the story is best suited for, right? But both have response times I’m not in love with, and while I’m definitely not in this to make money, the pay is rather meh. So I started hunting around on Ralan.com (thanks to Nancy at Picking Up the Pen for reminding me of this wonderful resource! I’d forgotten all about it!) and bookmarking markets I think would be potentially good: some are closed for submissions, which is fine, because I can read and do more research, but it makes me wonder: is it worth submitting to one of these two markets that I’m not sure about versus waiting for a submission window to a market that might actually fit? Heaven forbid that I don’t hear back from a previous submission and miss the window for a better-fitting market! I wish this story wasn’t so hard to place….

Writing: I didn’t fail quite so badly. I brainstormed my UF free-write with a novel idea I’d had a few years ago to see how things lined up and came up with some interesting ideas, but I’m still chewing on it. And after watching The Conjuring, I was struck with an idea that may work for a short story, so I spent Monday night chasing that particular rabbit and made notes for it on Tuesday. It’s promising, but I’m taking my time.

And that’s it this week!