Late February: Three Goals Accomplished

As the Ancient Greeks used to say, “The Gods have smiled upon me this moon cycle, giving me abundance in crops and goods and smiles and levity.” Or something. Some of their stuff is difficult to translate/make up. But no, February has been kind to me in 2025. Or have I just been working hard, and February has rewarded my hard work accordingly?

I put together my list of writing goals for 2025 in early January. Some goals I had already been working towards, some I had yet to start but knew I wanted to start sometime soon, and some goals I didn’t have total control over. Rather, I could only put my best foot forward… and hope the shoe salesman enrobed my toes in a high-class Nike. (Another Ancient Greek saying.) But I wanted that combination of goals, ones I knew I could achieve, and others I could just shoot for.

I’d been doing very well, knocking off two goals in the month of February already… two that I had complete control over. All I had to do with those was… just keep writing. But I had finally accomplished a goal now that I didn’t have complete control over. Getting published in Sci-Fi Shorts… again!

My story, “Best Receiver on the Planet” is published!

I had listed goals of getting published anywhere, but I also specifically targeted Sci-Fi Shorts for a few reasons. One, I really like that publication, they put out great content, and I love seeing my work as a part of it. Two, there’s something about having been published by a publication… and then published again. A sense of community? I don’t know. But I have had four stories published there prior, and I wanted to attempt to get another one published. Three, they honestly help me with my writing so much. I’ve learned a good deal from their editors just by sending stuff in, receiving notes, and working on edits. My stories don’t always make it after edits, but I have always appreciated the experience because my work is much better for it.

From 2023-2024 I had submitted 9 different stories to Sci-Fi Shorts. 4 were accepted and published. Of the 9, 1 of them they didn’t ask for me to edit, it was just declined. Not their taste. Also, afterwards I realized the story needed a lot of editing anyway and needed to be longer than their limit of 1,000 words. Of the other 8, Sci-Fi Shorts editors gave me notes and asked me to make edits and resubmit, which I did, and 4 were good enough to be published. But every time I learned a good deal about writing. Not every publisher does this. Most publishers don’t do this. I truly appreciate this because it’s great to see the faults in your story, the improvements that can be made, the potential for change, etc. But also, I learned a couple good tips from them in general. Maybe I should have picked up on some of those things already, but whatever, we have to learn them some time. I learned a bit about what “Purple Prose” is and how it isn’t for everyone, and here, definitely not for them. Beautiful language and unique wording is excellent, but when it takes away from the story, you can lose readers. I also learned never to say something was “indescribable” or “unable to be described” because as the writer, that is my job. I am supposed to describe everything to the reader.

In 2025, I wanted to submit again. I wanted to get published again. I sent over a story in early January, my 10th one to them overall, and they gave me notes. I made my edits, attempting to fix it up as best as I could, but ultimately, it was still declined. I still believe in the story, maybe it too needs more runway than just 1,000 words, and maybe it still needs a lot of fixing up. But then, I saw they had a prompt on their site! Sci-Fi stories that have something to do, somehow, with sports.

Oh, hello, beautiful. Is that me you are looking at?

I am huge into many sports. This was speaking directly to me. I hadn’t thought of writing a sci-fi/sports story before, but I immediately came up with an idea. It involves football, one of my favorites. And it involves aliens, one of my favorite things to write about. I’m proud of it, and it gave me a little more taste of writing about sports in stories, which I have begun to realize that I really enjoy doing.

And it feels great to get published once again… my first one of 2025. My eighth time getting published overall. I haven’t had a story published in a publication somewhere since around midway through 2024. As you can tell, I’m pretty proud of myself.

I’m making good progress through my list of goals, it’s just about time to get started on my next big project, but for now, I will savor this accomplishment. As the Ancient Greeks used to say, “It is not only to grow the crops in which one should wear a smile on one’s face, but when one tastes the delectable flavors of hard work and fills one’s belly.”

Or something. I’m really not sure. Were the Ancient Greeks even big “crop guys” or what? I mean, they had a God of Wine so that makes me think, you know, grapes are grown, they’d have to know how to grow things in the soil, but also a culture with a God of Wine… are they working all that hard or are they probably too tipsy off the Malbec to really be in the fields all day?