What's Up? | August 2023
News & Updates
495 words / 5 minutes
News & Updates
Hello, Readers and Fellow Contributors/Authors!
News
Publishing
I have no publishing news as I haven’t submitted new works to paying journals. Frankly the journal submission process, for the journals that pay, has frustrated me the past couple of years. Is it me? Is it the literary journals?
What are your thoughts?
The journals that don’t pay have published me; here’s a list:
5-7-5 Haiku Journal | Agape Review | CommuterLit | Fifty Word Stories | Friday Flash Fiction | SpillWords Press. | The Drabble
Personal
I’m a fairly new veggie gardener. My “Gardening: Season 2” adventures helped me learn much about soil improvements, and…critters. Cute critters who ate my plants. Then, the unusual heat wave we suffered through all summer took a huge toll on our plants. I mention all of this because a gardening theme may pop up in some new works over the next few months. Oh, and cooking from scratch. I’ve “conquered” home-made mayonnaise! Cooking and recipe ideas may also appear in future works.
Updates
I’ve Struggled to Write
Okay, honesty time. COVID, 2020—2022, affected me deeply, and I’ve been digging myself out of a writer’s-block pit since 2020. It’s been a slow dig.
I did post a couple of COVID-era (and new) works here:
During the past three years, I moved over to Substack. I then scheduled posts of my previously published works here as a backup to my website which is a bit neglected.
My heart-felt gratitude goes out to my long-term readers for your patience as you saw works show up here that you had already read.
Moving Forward
I’m having fun reviewing some drafts that have lived on my hard drive for several years. It’s time to polish them up and let them live on Substack.
Substack has also rolled out new features: Chat and Notes. I tried Chat a few times (it’s in the Substack mobile app), and it fell flat for me. I like the Twitter/X look-and-feel of Notes and post about once a week. You can also access Notes in your web browser as well as in the app.
Substack’s newest feature, Follow, seems to make the experience easier for readers. I’m wondering how many Followers will convert to Subscribers, and only time will tell.
I hope to “up” my photography game, and use some of my own images with my stories and poems. I may also have some surprises in the images category.
I think that’s it, folks.
Do you have any questions for me? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for being here. I appreciate you!
Your Turn
What are your thoughts as a reader on Substack? What do you like and don’t like?'
And, to my fellow writers, what are your thoughts about the publishing world?
Or, ignore the above and feel free to say “hello” and express your thoughts. What’s new with you?
If you are not getting paid or prestige, I, personally, don’t see the point of submitting to “journals.” Why let someone who is not paying you decide if your stories get published? Publish them yourself on Substack and build your own following instead of a journal’s. 🤓
Hi Jenise, great to hear about your writing life and updates. Other than sending a couple of submissions to Five Minutes in 2022 (100-word micro memoir...you should submit to them!), I haven’t bothered sending any of my stories to traditional publishers. I’ve pretty much been going all in here on Substack. I would like to find some venues that will publish “previously published” stories and send a few off in that manner, but I’m not as keen to let my fiction sit around in a queue collecting dust these days. I’d rather get them in front of readers!
Can’t wait to read your upcoming work!