Happy Fall, Y'All!

Welcome to the most wonderful time of year: autumn! Cloudy skies, cozy sweaters, soups and pies, pumpkins and colorful leaves! Except, I live in CA, so it’s still sunshine, tank tops, and ice cream here, but fall is still my favorite season. Happy to kiss summer goodbye and get rolling with the final stretch of 2024.

I’m back after a bit of a pause in September. If you follow me on socials, you might have heard that I had to cancel the September newsletter because I had COVID. It was absolutely miserable, so I will definitely be getting the updated vaccine this fall once I’ve waited the allotted post-infection time frame. I encourage you to get your vaccines this season as well and to stay safe out there.

On to the updates!

Flash Contest Placement

Over the summer I participated in a contest with my writing community, Codex Writers, called Flash, Savior of the Universe. We write three flash stories based on prompts and submit in a tight deadline schedule to be critiqued and scored by our fellow Codexians. This was only my second time participating, and I have had a blast both times. I am very excited to say that I scored second in my division! Absolutely stunned because the stories my division mates were putting out were top tier. Y’all will be seeing them out in magazines very soon, I am certain. While I don’t participate in the contests for the scores (and there is no formal prize or anything), it is nice to have that recognition that, oh yeah, people like my stories. Of the three stories I wrote for the contest, one remains a flash, two are now shorts, and both the flash and one of the shorts are already out in the submission wilds. I hope you get to read them soon.

Flights of Foundry 2024 Recap

September ended with a bang with Dream Foundry’s international, virtual SFFH convention Flights of Foundry. I hung around all weekend and listened in on some spectacular panel discussions, met some folks, participated in some discussions, and also spoke on some panels myself!

I wrote a recap of my time there with some takeaways and tidbits I wanted to share. If you couldn’t make it to the convention, some of the programming was recorded and will, eventually, make its way to the Dream Foundry YouTube channel. In the meantime, past convention programming is available there, and Dream Foundry itself has a ton of awesome resources for creators and fans alike, so definitely check them out.

The Writing Life

In an effort to improve both my physical and mental health, I am implementing changes in my routines, schedule, and even physical workspaces to better accommodate my own health needs and to more effectively work toward goals I have in my writing career. I am very happy to report that so far I have made significant positive change, and I am hoping to spend the rest of the year nailing down the new habits to be able to start ticking off some career bingo squares come 2025. I have some ideas already, and I’m hoping to be able to include all of you lovely subscribers in the process.

Submission Stats

As of writing this post, my Submission Grinder stats are as follows:

Total Submissions: 96
Rejections (Form): 79
Rejections (Personal): 13
Acceptances: 2
Outstanding Subs: 11

We’re in the last quarter of 2024, and I am closing in on 100 submissions! Last year I ended with exactly 100, so this year if I go over that will be a new record. A bittersweet notion because the higher the number does mean the more rejections I’ve received, but I have produced 9 new stories this year alone, and 7 of them have gone on to submissions (1 has been published!), so the higher numbers also reflect the increase in productivity.

Glad to be back in the swing of things!

Happy Fall, Y’all!

—Catherine