Scary New Territory

I don’t know why but I find it hard to write short fiction. For me, it seems a lot easier to write a novel than a short story. So I find myself in some scary new territory as I try to take some advice that a published author gave me.

Barbara HaworthAttard did a reading and book signing at my local library last week. She told us how she first got published in a children’s magazine and how that opened up all sorts of doors for her writing career. Her first novel actually stated on the back cover that she had been published in Cricket magazine.

So this past weekend, I made a trip to the main branch of the library to pick up copies of Cricket, Spider, Owl, New Moon Girls, Chickadee, Ladybug, and Chirp magazines. I wanted to familiarize myself with what kind of stories are found within those pages. I then looked up the submission guidelines on the Internet.

I wanted to start working on a new novel this winter but I think I am going to work on some short stories for magazines instead. I kind of already started. A few weeks ago I wrote a story to share with my class and I even illustrated it using the SMARTboard in my classroom. So I have written my first digital picture book that I will be sharing that with you here next week.

I also wrote a story today but I don’t know if it is any good. I would like to post it up here to get some feedback and support but I’m not sure if magazines would like to publish something that is already available online.

So, I am entering scary new territory. I am going to write short fiction this winter and send off submissions to magazines. Wish me luck.


2 responses to “Scary New Territory”

  1. Hi Chase – Good luck. Apparently most folk find short fiction the hardest to break into. Even Stephen King got mountains of rejections for his short fiction but he persevered. You can do it.