Living the Fictional Dream

My writing group had its annual planning meeting earlier this week. This meeting is when we select what projects and activities we want to pursue during the year ahead. Most of the time, it’s the usual stuff — crits, meetings, write-ins, the prompts contest… This year, we decided to add something new to the mix.

In lieu of our usual themed short story collection challenge (which was cancelled for lack of participation this year), we are going to try to work on writing stories for and submitting stories to the professional markets.

I’m really excited about the idea. I’ve been sending stories to some of the professional markets for a while now. I got a couple of personal rejections with compliments of my writing style from one market in that category (well, it’s a pro market if your story is under a certain word count… so it’s not one of the big three or anything), which was thrilling to me, but all the others have been the typical form rejections. It would be awesome if I could finally break into one of the bigger markets.

Not that I don’t love all of the smaller ‘zines that I’ve been a part of. I love each and every one of them. I’m grateful that they published my stories, and I’m happy to have been a part of them. The ones that have print versions, too, are in a special place on my bookshelf.

But, wouldn’t it be awesome to get both the larger paycheck and the larger readership that comes along with publishing in a professional market?

I hope that I have enough time to devote to this project over the next year, because, if it succeeds, I think it would take this hobby of mine to the next level. I wonder if Daddy will be willing to take on baby duty a little more often so I have time to write between coming home from work and bedtime…