Week 41 — Year of Short Stories 2026

2026 is another year of short stories. In this weekly series, I track my short story writing, from idea and draft to submission. This is for the week of Oct 12 – Oct 18. Stats for the Year Stories Finished: 3 Submissions Currently Out: 7 Submissions Total: 38 Rejections: 33 Acceptances: 0 Submissions and Responses It was a quiet week. No new submissions or responses. Goals My goals from last week: Revise The Magpie Write Mother Night My kids had some school holidays this week, which seemed as good an excuse as any to take two days off myself. That gave me more writing time than usual, and as a result it was a fairly productive week. Mother Night was one of the stories that I started from my brainstorms doc without having a full outline. I’ve started on several of these, just to see where they take me. I tend to abandon them after a few hundred words if they don’t inspire me. This one turned out to be one I enjoyed, and the plot was straightforward, so nothing really had to change in…