According to Duotrope, I just hit a new milestone: 50 short story submissions! That’s 11 short stories written, completed, and submitted at least once in the last two years. I had at least one submission a month for the last year. Five stories are currently out on submission.

All but eight of those submissions were in the last year — it is not a coincidence that one year ago this week marks my getting home from Viable Paradise XIV.

Looking at what I’ve been writing, this past year has seen me branching out a lot more. I spent a lot of time on a zombie novella that isn’t ready to circulate yet (and may not be for some time), but I’ve also got a very promising fantasy short making the rounds, and a Halloween story just hitting its first markets this week. I’m still writing mysteries (and have a great one on back burner while I think through the minor characters) but I’m much more comfortable now outside that very narrow subgenre. I’ve been experimenting with style as well, with 1st person narration, stronger voices, and more heavily stylized prose. Moreover, I do think that each new story has been in some way an improvement over the stories that went before.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to, and what I’ll still be up to. And! I finally found my copy of Toulmin’s argument book, so I’m looking to proceed on that series of blog posts soon.