Thirty-three

I finished and submitted my thirty-third short story of the year this evening. This one's a 2,500-word erotic story.

Published 2x

My story "Duped By a Con Man" appears in the August True Confessions, and my story "Trapped By a Tornado" appears in the August True Story.

Thirty-two

I finished and submitted my thirty-second short story of the year, a 5,300-word confession.

19

I received my 19th acceptance of the year this afternoon, this time for a confession.

18

I received my 18th acceptance of the year this morning. This one's for a confession.

Thirty-one

I finished and submitted my thirty-first short story this morning. It's a 3,400-word confession.

17

I received my 17th acceptance of the year this morning, this time for a confession.

Thirty

Earlier today I finished, but I have not yet submitted, my thirtieth short story of the year. This one's 5,200 words and might be generally classified as a ghost story. I've not done this in a long, long time, but I wrote this story with no particular market in mind, and now I have no idea where to submit it.

Too many ideas, not enough time

There isn't enough time to write every story I want to write. I have several hundred stories-in-progress and each day I seem to add to the list. In an effort to become more efficient without quashing my flow of ideas, I recently reviewed many of my stories-in-progress, with an emphasis on confessions.

I found 52 confessions that I felt I could finish without undue stress. In each case I had written at least 1,000 words or had written a rough plot outline. Now, when I sit down each morning to write confessions, I select a story from the list and work on it until it is complete rather than bounce from story-to-story as I often used to do. Confessions are written for a specific market, so I know where to submit each one as I complete it, and I've already completed and submitted five of the stories on the list.

I also found three stories that have no specific known market--a noir story, a ghost story, and a fantasy--and I've been doing the same thing with this much-shorter list during my evening writing sessions. I've finished the noir story, am about to complete the ghost story, and will work on the fantasy next.

Most of the erotica I write during my mid-day writing session is written for specific projects, so I don't have a list of stories-in-progress that I dip into. Rather, I write erotica based on the due date of whichever anthology is up next.

So, now, when I sit down to write--regardless of which of the day's three writing sessions it happens to be--I know what I'm going to work on. This has eliminated a lot of fumbling around and helped to increase my productivity.

At the same time, I keep myself open to new story ideas. I jot them down whenever I have them, but I only jot down enough to remind me what I hoped to write. Then I return to the work-in-progress.

At some point, I'll have to create new lists to work from, and that's a good thing because it means I've finished writing everything on the existing lists.