Early September: 11 Goals Accomplished

What a way to start September off! First day of the new month, new goal accomplished. This one came about in an interesting way too.

Earlier this year. I had many ideas for some fun, speculative stories. A horror story about a house that was haunted, a story where unkilling people was possible, a story about people having settled on another planet which held a useful new metal, and several others.

The sci-fi on another planet, wrote it, submitted it somewhere... it got turned down. I figured I'd need to rework it and try sending it elsewhere. Midway through the year, I worked on the story about unkilling. I finished a rough draft and decided to give it some time before I went back to reread and edit. Right around this same time my story "Hadullen Island" had been published in The Fifth Di... and I had received a physical copy of it. Actually having and holding a physical copy of a publication with my work inside was so amazing. I decided that I wanted more physical copies like that. Of course, I want to get published anywhere, but I was especially intrigued by submitting to other publications that printed physical copies.

I was already submitting to many publications like that and I looked around and found some more. I looked back at The Fifth Di... published under Hiraeth Publishing and remembered that they have several other publications under their umbrella. I've submitted to some before. I should do that again, as many, if not all of their publications also do print copies. I reminded myself of the publications under their umbrella that I had submitted to and took a look at the other ones that I had not yet submitted to.

One of them stood out. Cosmic Crime Stories.

Everything about this publication was a match for the "Unkilling" story I had just written. The genre, the tone, the style, even the word count was right on par with the length of my story. And they were accepting submissions! I had only finished the rough draft several days before this moment, but I went back, reread it, took notes, added more depth to my characters and the story, edited, and sent it along. But I was thinking, "What are the chances?"

I still don't know what the chances were, but they weren't zero. Because they accepted my story!

I got the news several months back but I knew the next publication of Cosmic Crime Stories would be coming out sometime in September, I just didn't know it would be immediately in September.

So, there it is. Available to get a digital copy.

Also available for physical copies.

My story "Unkilling" is set in a world where after people have been killed, they go to a sort of Purgatory for 30 days before being permanently killed. In that timeframe, it is possible for them to be unkilled. However, they live in a place with all these other criminals that have been killed for their crimes. One innocent man has been killed and needs to be unkilled by the cop who put him there before his time is up... but the place is crawling with past criminals the cop has killed in the past month.

It's always so exciting to get published in a publication, to get that notification. And then seeing your name and your story written there, included, that's another special feeling.

And this one came about in such a fortuitous way, just days after having finished a story and not knowing where I'd submit it, and then learning of the perfect place to send it.

Of the 16 writing goals I had set for myself this year, I had no idea how many I'd complete. I didn't ever think I'd complete all of them, I just wanted to give myself many to shoot for. I wasn't even sure I'd complete half of them. This is my 11th goal that I've accomplished on the list. It might be the last one I complete this year, or one of the last, as many of the rest are out of my control. But I'm so pleased with 11 accomplished goals. It also happens to be my 11th story that I've had published in my writing career, so, this is a special one for many reasons.

Feeling quite accomplished in the month of September, and it's only just begun.