This fortnight, I drafted a new interactive fiction piece, got a story accepted to one of my favourite podcasts, and copped a massive story rejection.

Fiction

Let’s start with the bad news first.

In my last post, I went on and on about my story The Menticider, which had gotten a revision request from a fantastic publisher. Well, that publisher was The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF)… and my story didn’t get accepted.

Not gonna lie, this one hurt, far more than any previous rejection. I believe in the story, however, and I’m going to shop it around. If I don’t get any bites, I may publish this one myself, because I’ve been meaning to try that out for a while. We shall see.

And now some good news: the horror podcast Tales to Terrify accepted my flash fiction piece Offering. I love this little story. I was asked to write a synopsis for it and this is what I came up with:

A demon plagues a forest village, taking lambs and calves in exchange for peace. But what will the demon take when they have no more lambs to give? Agatha, the village barber-surgeon, won’t wait to find out.

I think it’ll be a few months before this one goes live on the podcast, but I’ll be sure to let you know about it.

I also mentioned I’d started work on an interactive fiction piece in my last post. That’s drafted now. The working title is Heart of Maddock, and it’s a tiny dungeon crawler, featuring a few puzzles and one (hopefully) tough choice at the end, regarding your dungeon-raiding companion.

I’m gonna let it sit for a week or so and then polish it and send it out for playtesting. It has been a nice comedown project after the slog that was The Menticider.

Anyway, here are this fortnight’s stats:

Pending: 5 (4 stories)
Submissions: 3
Rejections: 3
Withdrawn: 2
Acceptances: 1

Copywriting

I’ve actually been writing scripts for Frontier Media’s YouTube channel The Front again, and I’m still editing scripts for a few other writers. While none of my videos went up this fortnight, I’ve been posting some of my previous scripts to my blog so I can use them as samples.

Here they are:

• The Dark Truth Behind Filipino & American Relations
• What was Life in Switzerland REALLY like during WW2?
• Why History Overlooks How Much the Japanese Actually Feared the Americans in WW2
• Why this Nasty American Habit Was ONLY Ever Found in the Gruesome Pacific Theatre of WW2
• The Copious Amounts of Drugs Used in the Vietnam War Explained

I’m also going to start posting articles about copywriting and fiction writing here quite soon, separate from my fortnightly updates. Right now, I’m still brainstorming topics.

Thoughts

Look, that rejection buried me this fortnight. But I’ve since been digging myself out of my grave, and I’m excited for these next two weeks to come.

There’s little else to say except thanks for reading 🖤

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