I’ve been getting back into the groove of writing in the New Year after slowing down on doing longer stories. I actually have a list of longer stories I started that are unfinished. (“In progress,” as I say.) I’ve also been submitting stories to various markets online. I can do the last bit because I’ve been writing a lot of stories over the last decade or so and I have a lot that never sold.
Some editors dismiss that as “in the trunk” stories but I disagree.
Legendary writer Robert A. Heinlein once listed some rules for writers. Among them was “You must keep (your story) on the market until it sells.”
Heinlein started his career in the era of big selling magazine fiction, so keeping the stuff out there was an important part of getting it in front of an editor and selling it. These days most writers are not making a living at it.
I’ve told people “I pulled down three figures with my writing last year. That’s five dollars and seventy-five cents.”
As a result of all the submitting and getting rejected I have a handful of stories that I keep sending out. A lot of the time the rejections are because the anthology or such was swamped with good submissions. So, I have good stories that the editor liked (“I hope you sell this, because it belongs in a good anthology”) and I keep resubmitting them. I have a story in a magazine right now that (according to my records) I submitted at least six other times before it sold. And that’s not the only one! Perseverance and not taking rejections personally is the name of the game, or at least how it’s played.
These times are dark for our community (for a lot of communities) and those who write works with LGBT themes and characters may not feel they are doing anything. But by producing those works we are lighting a few candles in the darkness. It is important, maybe more important than we realize. And we may never know how much it has affected somebody.
Literature, creative works of all kinds are important.
One of Heinlein’s other rules for writing is: “You Must write.”
So, I’d better get to it!
Here’s a link to Heinlein’s Rules For Writers. [LINK] https://sfwriter.com/ow05.htm
Jeff Baker writes about reading and writing sci-fi, fantasy and horror and other sundry matters on or around the thirteenth of every month. He lives and writes in Wichita, Kansas where he has a stack of Robert Heinlein books. He has (as Mike Mayak) a story in the upcoming anthology “Five Seconds Of Power.” He posts weekly fiction on his blog https://authorjeffbaker.com/ and wastes time on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ and Blue Sky [LINK] https://bsky.app/profile/jeffbakerauthor.bsky.social as well as Mastodon (as “Mike Mayak”) https://mastodon.otherworldsink.com/@MikeMayak