Waning Winter Writing Wrap-Up

Still no new job, or even an interview, despite sending out a few dozen applications. I've got some runway with the ole employment insurance, so I'm not panicking just yet. Although, with the accursed gen AI replacing hundreds of thousands of human tech workers...I do need to find something sooner than later.

In the meantime, I've tried to be at least moderately productive when it comes to the writing stuff. I'm still submitting stories regularly, and as a result, I'm up to 32 rejections for the year so far. I should easily hit 100, or even 150 again by the end of the year. These were pretty much all form rejections, though. Would be nice to get a couple more personalized ones with some feedback.

I wrote a new flash piece for an annual writing forum championship contest (invite only), and placed 3rd out of 17, landing me a $20 USD prize. I'll take it! I wasn't sure how this story would be received by the judges, but since they enjoyed it, I'm comfortable with expanding this into a 2000-2500 word short story at some point in the future. The limit for this contest was 1000 words, and I kinda had to rush the ending a little.

The other bit of good news is that I received a full request from an indie publisher. I hope their editorial board decides to move ahead with the project, but I won't know their decision for 4-6 months. Publishing is such a waiting game, lemme tell ya.

Lastly, I completed an audio recording of a flash horror piece that will be published by AntipodeanSF next month, and also feature on their radio show and podcast. I already had a decent mic with a pop filter, so the sound was actually pretty good. After the editor added some studio magic, well, frankly it sounds close to a professional reading. Nice! I'm looking forward to sharing the links in April.

To close this entry, I wanted to shout out my lovely Old Queen Mittens for her graceful acceptance of her rapidly aging body. Her mobility is now limited to jumping up on my bed, despite the pain medication for her hips and other joints, and she's only comfortable in two of her favorite sleeping spots now - her electric blanket and her pillow on my bed. She has good days and not so good days, but she is comfortable and happy. I just wish she could tell me which can of food she fancies on any given day 😅

She's always been there for me, and I'll always be there for her for whatever comes next.