I’ve been working on editing a collection of original short stories for the past month and a half. I was shopping this collection around, but after getting a few rejections, I thought I’d spend some time on the collection and see if I could edit the stories and make them better.
Since July, I’ve been going over each story, taking out the weak ones or the ones that will need more than a single draft to be polished up and making the rest presentable for submission. And as of today, after rewriting the final third of the final story, I’m done with the collection!
Honestly, I’m glad I decided to take another look at some of these stories. It had been a while since I looked at some of them, so I noticed problems that I hadn’t noticed before. One story needed a lot more added to the ending before I could call it finished. Another needed an entire section taken out for being extraneous. One story needed to be removed because it needs a lot more work before I can consider putting it out for publication. And one was just terrible, so I trashed it (sometimes it happens).
But overall, I’m satisfied with the work I did on this collection. And as I sip a beer and write this post, I think I’m ready to send this collection out again. Whether or not it’ll find a publisher, I’m not sure, but I think it’ll be a lot more successful in that department than I was before. And if I still have trouble, I have enough confidence in these stories that I think I could self-publish it without any issues.
Or without too many issues, at least.
Anyway, besides submitting this collection, I’ll be putting the final touches on a few other projects before sending them out. After that, I have two stories I’ll need to edit before I can submit them anywhere. And after that…I don’t know. I definitely want to work on some more shorter works, but I’m also warming up to the idea of starting work on another novel. Maybe this November or December (though not as a NaNoWriMo project). We’ll see what happens.
Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got a collection to start shopping around. Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares and WATCH OUT FOR THE AX MURDERER!!!
Rami Ungar The Writer 
Congrats on polishing up the collection, Rami. I hope it finds a home! This week I sent out a novella for the 3rd time, and it came back the very next day. This is the third time it has come back so quickly. Submission editors can’t get past the first brutal scene. Ah well, on to something else, I guess.
Keep trying with it. You never know. And I think there are a few presses that specialize in brutal horror, like Grindhouse and Raw Dog Screaming Press.
Thanks for the two publisher recs, but I’ve already looked into them. They’re both closed to submissions, Grindhouse until “late 2022,” wow.
Damn, that sucks! Sorry I can’t be of more help.
That’s okay. Thanks for trying. I guess I’ll hang on to it in case something comes around. Meanwhile . . . short stories and . . . start a novel maybe.
Sounds like we’re on a similar wavelength.