It aint easy being a horror writer…

… for one thing, were do you submit your work?

I spent some time browsing Duotrope today searching for a potential home for one of my stories, and I noticed just how many markets are temporarily closed.  A database search with “Horror” chosen as Genre, “Short Story” chosen as Length, and “Semi-Pro and up” chosen for Payscale, results in about 100 listings.  Out of those, about a third of them are currently closed, mostly to catch up on submissions and clear out the slush.

I also have a Favorites List with about a dozen markets that are more relative to what I tend to write (and which don’t lean more toward fantasy or science fiction), and of those, about 60% are temporarily closed.

So strangely enough, given how I usually lack any patience, I’m actually sitting on a couple stories, waiting for markets to open back up.

It’ll be interesting to see how quickly some of these magazines get flooded again when they finally do re-open to subs.  I suspect there’s plenty of water behind the dam.

Anyone else having trouble finding potential homes for your work?  Do you have any favorite markets that are actually still open?

Ouch…

Received a rejection for my Haunted Legends sub tonight.  Oh well.  My crossed fingers were getting tired anyway.

On to the next…

Finally writing again

A funny thing happened this week while anxiously waiting for submission responses:  I wrote a new story.  It’s a quick one — only about 1,400 words that I wrote over the last day and a half — but it’s the third story I’ve completed in the last 4 weeks.  This after not writing a lick of fiction in over a year.  Even if they’re not especially good, I’m just glad to be getting them done.

The story, tentatively titled “Like a Lion” was inspired by an assignment I completed as part of the Gotham Writer’s Workshop, which I’ve been participating in during the last several weeks.  I took the online course as a way to kickstart my writing again, to get me back on track, and it seems to be working.

I’ll give it some polishing over the next several days, and get it out on the market.  And that’ll make 3 stories that I have out in submission land — the most ever for me.  Yes, I’m one of those ‘wrtiers’ that doesn’t write very often, but I think that’s changing.

Haunted search terms

Over the last two days, the following search engine terms were used by visitors of my blog:

“haunted legends”

“haunted legends submissions”

“hanted legends anthology”

“datlow haunted legends”

“haunted legends mamatas”

Looks like I’m not the only one getting a little anxious about my sub to this antho.  I mean, it’s been two weeks since it closed.  Isn’t that enough time??

Nossa Morte

The August issue of Nossa Morte has just gone live. It’s another jam-packed issue of some kick-ass fiction!

Haunted Legends – part 2

Story is done. Submission has been sent. I’m not sure if they’re going to love the idea, but the writing is as tight as I can get it. I’m actually pretty happy with the result, and I think it can find a home somewhere even if not in this anthology.

And the wait begins…

Anyone else submit something to this one? Any responses back yet?