Fortnightly update 49: 11.10.2021 to 24.10.2021
In this blog series, I share my fortnight-to-fortnight triumphs (and failures) as a writer. Despite all the ups and downs, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Short fiction
I’m currently submitting short fiction, mostly flash fiction and short stories, to online magazines and such for publication. I scored a tonne of rejections this fortnight, probably because I’ve started targeting high-tier publications which respond within a matter of hours or days, instead of months. One story racked up five rejections on its own, but I believe in it and am not going to give up. My skin thickens.
Here are this fortnight’s stats:
Submissions: 7
Pending: 8
Rejections: 7
Acceptances: 0
Rejections 2021 (from June 8th): 20
Grandad’s memoir
I had another sit-down with my grandad and extricated most of the info I’ll need to finish his memoir. It will be a short piece, maybe around 8k to 10k words, but I’m loving how it has turned out so far. I’m also excited to learn a little about self-publishing and printing smaller “books” such as this. I’d love to get it done by the end of the year, but we’ll see!
Frontier Media
I write scripts for Frontier Media, a media production company specialising in YouTube. Our two largest channels are The Front and Geetsly’s, and while I’ve written a little for Geetsly’s in the past, I mostly write for The Front and our new, smaller channel The Braved. Two of my videos went live this fortnight, and they’re both tracking super well. It’s nice to see The Braved growing. We’d love to reach 50k subscribers by the end of this year.
And here are my total stats:
Videos for The Front: 106
Videos for The Braved: 39
I write 280-character stories and poems using various writing prompt hashtags, mostly #vss365, on Twitter. I wrote just two this fortnight, but I loved both of them, and the second one got a nice amount of attention, too.
#firefly
The boy caught the firefly in his hands and burst into flames, making a calamity of what had been, until then, a peaceful twilight picnic. Before his family could react, trees, cars, and people combusted all around them. The fireflies were descending from the stars.
#river
The night after I birthed it, I took it to the cliff and tossed it into the moonlit river. My husband struck me and cried, “What have you done?” I guided him down to the water, and together we watched as our webbed child plucked out a trout and devoured it raw.
Conclusion
On top of all the rejections this fortnight, I was dealing with some fairly intense personal stuff, so I wasn’t super productive. But I’m hitting the ground running this fortnight, feeling strong in the body and mind.
Wish me luck, and thanks for reading <3