Query Day One

Finished the edits to Soiled Undies. Went through piece by piece, sharpening each story. Today I will begin exploring the world of author agents with the goal of submitting one query letter per day until I run out of agents who represent writers in my narrow niche of speculative fiction.

Meanwhile…

I have submitted three short stories to upcoming anthologies for A Midnight Kind of Place. I submitted The Day Mama Died (available on Amazon) for their RATS anthology as (spoiler) rats and rat poison appear in this story. I refined a piece of dark fiction that I had previously written for their SPIDERS anthology because, well, the piece was titled The Spider. For their WASPS anthology I wrote an original piece titled All I Wanted Was a Kiss, a darkly comedic romantic body horror. Yes, it was as fun to write as it sounds. Whatever the outcome, I am happy to have penned another creepy short to add to my Bleeding the Dark Humours collection.

This morning I just finished the first draft for my submission to Raconteur Press’ Sprockets anthology. Fromage and Failure is comedic alternate history original written specifically to the anthology’s theme. The first attempt came in 3000 words shy of their stipulated word count minimum. I had to go back and add a new character which had the happy effect of really bringing the story to life. Tough as the rewrite was, I think the final product is significantly better than the original.

There are several upcoming anthology opportunities for which I plan to write and submit stories. It is a great exercise for building my writing-on-demand muscle.

Also this morning, I published the mind-bending meet cute Do I Know You? to my Substack. I also shared the link to the Audible version read by professional voice actors Em and Tim Carlson. Their version improves upon and breathes new life into the characters and dialogue. Rave reviews from listeners so far.

A productive week behind me, I prepare to plunge into the unfamiliar territory of querying agents. Wish me luck!