The Great Dream Market Submission Project

Okay, I was doing my morning pages this morning and realized that I am a research writer: not a writer that does research or writes up research, but a test-to-fail writer.  A crash-test-dummy writer. I quit writing a short story a week so I could focus on novels, but now I feel deprived.  Wherrrrre are my short stories?  Obviously I need another project for writing short stories, one that isn’t quite as heavy (so I can still focus on novels), but where I can play with new ideas more often. Here’s what I’m noodling around:

• Pick my top markets that I want to break into (aside from Apex, because I’m still getting a lot from slushing).
• Make sure I always have a short story in those markets.

However, because Clarkesworld and Lightspeed are on my list (and that would be 2+ stories they could go through each month), I’m going to have to say that if I submit something to each of them per month, I’m good.

Here’s my list (very, very personally chosen; shooting for somewhere between 10 and 15 markets):

• Asimov’s (sf, 39 day avg. return, up to 25K, but 7500 or less seems preferred)
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies (fantasy, 31 days avg. return, secondary-world setting, under 10K)
• Black Static (horror, 50 days avg return, up to 10K)
• Clarkesworld (fantasy/sf/horror, 4 days avg return plus 1 week waiting before next sub, preferred length 4K)
• Daily Science Fiction (fantasy/sf, 18 days avg return, up to 10K but 1K or less preferred)
• Fantasy and Science Fiction (fantasy/sf, 13  day avg. return, up to 25K)
• Interzone (fantasy/sf, 54 days avg return, up to 10K)
• Lightspeed (fantasy/sf, 2 day avg return plus 1 week waiting, 5K or less preferred)
• Nightmare (horror, 1 day avg return plus 1 week waiting, 5K or less preferred)
• Weird Tales (weird tales, 100 days avg return, up to 5K)

For example, right now I have stories at:

• Black Static
• Interzone
• Lightspeed
• Clarkesworld

And a lot of the stories that work for one market will work for others.

But now I get to go, “Asimov’s.  I need to write a 3-6K story, SF.”  I like constraints like that.  Not too lose; not too tight.  I’m going to shoot for about a short story every other week, until I get caught up.