Writing Update – May 2022

After all the excitement over the last couple of months (my poem and Podcast story debuts), I’m feeling a bit worn thin. Also, I have a vacation coming up (first Int’l trip since the pandemic!), so lots of things other than writing on my mind.

So, this month I decided I would give you all just a quick update on where my writing stands. I’ll take the updates as they come one by one.

I’m Now a Member of the HWA and the SFWA!
Great news! After years of sending out stories, getting most of them rejected, and some accepted…I am proud to announce that I am now an (associate) member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Horror Writers Association.

It’s been a long ride and all this really is a surprisingly great feeling and affirmation of my fiction writing. Being able to attach those acronyms to my Twitter profile (and every darn cover letter I send out!) is a great feeling. Most of all, it helps readers and followers opt-in to following you a bit more easily. It also makes me feel like I’m part of a wider community, a community of hard-working people dedicated to the craft of writing.

So, if you’re an aspiring writer out there: keep at it and if you have approximately $100 or more in Pro sales (which you can document!), you should be able to sign up for both associations. I highly encourage you to do so!

Next up here: If you keep going there are “full” memberships for both organizations for “career” writers. Something for me to aim for next!

Multiple Poems Out on Submission
I admit it. I’ve been writing a lot of poetry lately. I write on the weekends, at night, mostly on my phone whenever the mood strikes me. It has become a great post(?)-pandemic creative outlet for me. It helps me express these sharp, sudden emotions in snippets of words. It’s something I never knew I needed an outlet for. It allows me to capture these “feeling-thoughts,” polish them and then move on—all without caring whether anyone else in the world will value them or not. It’s really only for me, as poetry should be! Forever and always!

But at the end of the day, it means I have complete poems. Complete poems I really ought to do something with. And so, I’ve decided to submit them.

Right now, I have five short poems out on submission. They are:

• Dominion (About a latent power lurking throughout space and time).
• Reflections (About taking out the garbage…I’m serious).
• Symmetry (About a place that is asymmetric…or is it?).
• In the Dose (About gamma rays and evolution).
• Star Eater (About beings that survive by eating stars. I.e., us.)

No bites yet from editors, but I will let you know if anything happens.

Stories Done and on Submission

I also have a number of short stories and a novella on submission. The novella, “The Presence” I completed late last year or early this year (I forget!). So, that’s not new. But I’m very proud of this piece and hoping an editor eventually sees its depth as well. We’ll see.

I have also completed a number of short stories lately and these are the ones out on submission:

• Photon
• The 17^th Street Anomaly
• Go Ask Alice
• Straw

All of these are Cosmic Horror or Dark Fantasy, except for “Straw” which is historical fiction. But it also has those dark, ominous vibes.

Well-wrought little tales all! No editor has bitten yet though! “Alice” in particular has gotten lots of “soft passes” asking me to send along more stuff, but that story in particular didn’t work for them.

Novelette Wrapped

I just finished a new novelette: “Der Gekreuzigte.” It’s just less than 10,000 words. It’s sort of a mashup of Cosmic Horror and Historical Fiction (my two favorite genres as a writer). Never thought to do this mashup before, but a certain controversy of the 1880s popped into my mind. And I realize I could spin it as a sort of scandal and coverup using historical documents and characters as “cover” and this idea popped out.

I have just started submitting it!

Big Post Coming

Tune in next month for a BIG blog post. I’ll just leave it at that for now. Let’s just say it will be an important milestone.

Until then, keep reading, keep writing!

Darius