Sometimes I need a little motivation. Okay, if I’m honest, there are a few days each month when I look at sales of books, or deadlines, or lack of activity on social media, and I just think is it all worth it? We all get that in all walks of life. There are times when things are hard, and you just need a little motivation to get you over the hump.

Now, I get my motivation in different ways, and I usually bounce back from something within 48 hours. Sometimes it might take longer, depending on what it is that bumped me into whatever hole I have to climb out of, but typically two days and I’m back.

What I love is the unexpected stuff that propels me into the stratosphere. I’m fortunate to have had plenty of those moments in my life, and in the course of my writing career also. The other night, for example. To keep a long story short – pun intended – I’ve had a short story “in the mail” with a magazine for over a year. They said they had overly long processing times, and it might be up to 8 months before hearing from them. But it took 13 months, and I was so very close to pulling the story and publishing it on Amazon, Patreon, or wherever.

I was very close, thinking that 12 months was probably the limit, but I didn’t. And yet, it bothered me that I could do something with that story.

Now, flash back a few years, and I had enrolled in a challenge with Dean Wesley Smith to write a story a week for a year. I liked the idea of writing short stories, and I also liked the idea of submitting them to magazines – the best part and perhaps only positive part of the traditional publishing world. I had plans to submit stories on a regular basis and keep them “in the mail.” I submitted one story to a magazine in 2021 and had a rejection a few months later, and I suppose I lost my appetite for it as it is so easy to self publish a story online.

Then, in 2023, I decided to give it another go. I was a few months into a second year of the challenge, and I submitted a Maratse story to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. I saw the 8 month turn around warning, and I knew too that other magazines such as Clarkesworld were experiencing an overwhelming number of stories written by ChatGPT and actually closed for submissions. It was not looking good, and, not being known for my patience, I got put off, again.

But I kept the story out there, mostly because I didn’t know how to pull it. 😉

Then, a week or so ago, late on  a Friday night when I was again wondering how to pull my story, I got the mail that sent me into the stratosphere. Hitchcock’s liked my story and wanted to buy it.

S.t.r.a.t.o.s.p.h.e.r.e. I say. 🙂

Fun for me, a little intense for Jane.

Anyway, my second story submitted sold. It took some time, but I was patient. And now? Yeah, now I’m more than a little motivated!

I like writing short stories. Short stories are fun. I want to write more. I’m already writing one each week alongside novellas and novels, but now I want to get them “in the mail”. I’ve see that I can do it. So the motivation has been effectively ramped up, and now I just need to match it with the actual writing of stories.

Simple, huh?

Yes. But why stop at simple?

I’ve learned an awful lot from Dean Wesley Smith, and through his videos about the subject of writing short stories, I picked up on what he called The Race. Basically, he and several other authors including Kevin J. Anderson (I’ve read a lot of his Dune prequel books) had a race of sorts in which they were awarded points for their short stories, such as:

• +1 point for a story “in the mail”, i.e. submitted to a magazine
• -1 point for a story that was rejected
• -1 point for a story that was bought

I’m going to add a category here.

• -1 point if self published, e.g. on Amazon or Patreon etc.

So, if a story was submitted – status unknown – it was worth one point. When it was rejected it would lose that point, but gain it again when it was submitted to another magazine. If the story was bought, it lost it’s point, and a new story would have to be written to replace it.

Still with me?

I like a challenge, and I’m setting myself a new one using The Race. I’ve created a page on this website for the purpose of monitoring my points. Now, if I’ve got a lot of points, that means I’ve got lots of stories in the mail. If a story gets rejected, I fire it off to another magazine – I have a list. If I exhaust the list, then I’ll publish the story myself.

I’m not worried that the rejections mean the story is crap, just that it doesn’t fit that market, or that it’s not to the editor’s taste. I have enough feedback on my stories and books now to see that what some readers like, others hate. It’s just the way it works.

But this works for me. And if you’re a budding writer, or even an established one, maybe it’ll work for you, too. If it helps you to have some competition, then drop me a line, and I can always add you to The Race.

I think the fun thing is that it’s not negative to have lots of points, as each point is a story. Neither is it negative to have fewer points as it means you’ve done something with the story. And then, every story I write is more practice. And, if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that I go all in for practice. 😉

So, there’s my motivation, for short stories, at least.

You can follow along on the page, and just let me know if you want to take part.

Chris