A Revelation Realized

Back before Vocal, I wrote short stories and sold them to publications.

Then, along comes a Facebook ad promoting a contest with a payout 250 times greater than the most money I’d ever been paid for a short story up to that point (and even now), and Vocal began to reshape how I saw the writing world.

I’d dabbled in Medium. Even ran my own WordPress site for a few years. So the world of online publishing wasn’t exactly new to me.

Still, I’d never found success like this before. Both prizes and community.

Publish a story, and off it goes into the ether. Usually never to be heard from again. If you’re lucky, the collection/magazine/anthology gets a review and your story is mentioned by name as a favorite. Or maybe a family member or friend grabs a copy and shares their thoughts. But that’s typically all you hear back from readers, and that’s been rare in my experience.

And, between this new-found feedback loop that Vocal offered and the most money I’ve ever made from my writing (at least until I started publishing books), Vocal slowly took up more of my writing energy and time.

Not that I completely paused short story drafting or submissions, but the number of short stories I’ve completed in the past three years and didn’t upload to Vocal can be counted on one hand.

Still, selling short stories is how I got my start. It’s in my DNA.

So, back at the end of October when I wrote “A Revelation,” I had a profound moment where I drafted a story and didn’t immediately hit the Create Story button. And that temptation certainly was there.

Instead, I started sending it out to Science Fiction publications, knowing that there was no guarantee this one would fare better than the previous two SciFi stories but happy to have something fresh to send out to magazines that had said “No” to everything else in the library.

And, uh, it worked.

Unexpected Success

Maybe that sounds bad. Like I didn’t think the story was worthwhile.

To be clear, I do. I’m thrilled that it’s now published in Sci Phi Journal. But my expectations were well tempered by the fact that I’ve written other great stories, including a couple that editors praised as incredibly hard to turn down, and they have spent 6-7 years looking for a home.

Meanwhile, “The War of the Satellites” might by my fastest turnaround ever at 4-5 months.

And it’s the first time I’ve been paid a semi-pro cents per word rate.

And it’s the first SciFi story I’ve ever sold.

So, yes, I’m thrilled. I even wrote up a little teaser to help promote it, something I almost never do:

As humanity continues to pursue more autonomous and intelligent AI, what are the ramifications for warfare? In this scenario, automated weapons have been granted the ability to feel as a way to keep them motivated through emotion. A good kill brings a feeling of triumph. A bad kill leads to feelings of failure and inadequacy. But what happens when there are no more targets to shoot and the weapons platforms are left to stew in whichever emotional soup they have reaped? The triumphant become bored. The mediocre become despondent. And each group begins to act in unforeseen ways.

And if that caught your interest, you can check out the full story over on Sci Phi Journal’s website below. Only 1,100 words.

Otherwise, just know that I am happy and validated as a short story writer today 😁