Short Story, Long returns next week (8/13/24)!

At the beginning of summer, I was a little behind, was excited for a break after a pretty demanding semester, had some travel planned and some writing goals, and was just generally a little worn out, so decided to take a break. I said in a post, “we’ll back either end of June or first week of July!”… but then I took August off too. I felt a little bad, but it was incredibly productive, and rejuvenating, and just a lot of fun, and now I’m coming back rested and excited for the coming year!

This Substack is really about finding stories I fall in love with and wanting to share them with you readers rather than something more personally focused, but because the personal was the cause for the break, here’s some of how I spent that time:

• Finished a draft of THE LAST LOCK-IN, the novel manuscript I’ve been working on. I think it’s the best thing I’ve written. I’m now hoping some agents and publishers and then readers agree. We’ll see!

• I published a few short-shorts:

  • “The Future Is Not What Was Promised But Is Almost Here Regardless” on hex

  • “DT Only Reads My Stuff If It’s Really Short Because He’s a Baby with a Wife and Kids and Adult Responsibilities Blah Blah Blah” on Autofocus

  • “Maps” on JAKE

• I wrote a bunch more short-shorts too, either currently out on submission or in need of one more little clean-up draft.

• I almost got a tattoo of the little ghost holding a handle with cross-hatched shading that I’ve been using at the SSL logo. That didn’t happen… but maybe soon??

That’s it for now. We’ll have a new story next week (Tuesday, 8/13) and then will be back to our regularly scheduled programming of a new story every other Tuesday, with author interviews and other occasional story bonus material on the weeks in between. I also plan to open submissions again next month, at least for the month of September and maybe through October as well.

Thanks!
-Aaron