Science Fiction being kind of my thing recently, I found Analog while looking for something new to read. I love the covers, they’re very old school. (Yes, I’m a little bit hipster. Excuse me while I drink a Starbucks Pikes Place and write in my Moleskine.)

Genre- Science Fiction

Word Count- 2,000 to 7,000 for short fiction, but they also take novellas with word counts of 10,000 to 40,000

Sub Date- Any time

Wait time- Up to four months

Payout- Eight to ten cents per word, up to 7,000 words

Rights- Not listed

Here is your link to the full submission guidelines.

If you want even more markets, subscribe to The Road To Full Time Newsletter, and get the ever growing list of short fiction markets, updated every month.

For your Throwback Thursday reading fun!

Hey, guys. This story is another that will be included in the upcoming book, Days and Other Stories. I hope you like it. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Marcey-

It was warm out finally, and thank God for that, Marcey thought.  At 72, the cold was no fun.  But finally the winter chill had gone, the wet grass was dried by the late May sun, and she could take her work outside.  She packed up her knitting supplies, and took herself down to the park.
She bought herself a cup of coffee, and settled into her work.  She was making a little red sweater for a client who wanted something more personal for her nephew’s second birthday.  It made Marcey’s daughter laugh whenever they talked about her little ‘side hustle,’ as  they called it.  It wasn’t like she needed the money.  She wasn’t hurting like some her age.  She just liked to keep busy.
As she made her way to the chest of the sweater, a young couple walked past.  The woman was keeping up a constant stream of chatter.  The man, however, stopped in his tracks, and stared at Marcey.  Specifically, he stared at the sweater.  She was starting to wonder whether she should yell for the police, when the man burst into tears.
“Sorry,” the woman said to her, pulling the man away.  “I’m really sorry.”  She hurried away from Marcey as quickly as she could, still dragging the sobbing man along.
“What was all that?” Marcey muttered.  Since she knew she wasn’t likely to find out, she sipped her coffee, and made a mental note to tell her daughter about it later.

Jordan-

It was a warm day, but Jordan didn’t feel very warm.  There was never such a thing a good weather for a funeral, after all.
She’d put a lot into helping Paul plan it.  There was no one else around to do it, and hadn’t he always been her best friend?  So she pulled on her black dress, and went to his apartment to pick him up.
Paul was dressed when she got there.  Well, that’s a step in the right direction, she thought.  He even managed a smile for her when he came to the door.
“Did you eat?” she asked him.
“Not yet,” he replied.
“Let’s take a walk through the park, and go to the diner,” Jordan said.
“Yeah, okay,” he agreed.
Jordan felt triumphant as they started along the path.  They’d talked about nothing but the funeral for days, so she thought of anything she could to talk about now other than that.
“So that Rick guy called me again,” she said.  “Just out of the blue, like our last date went well or something.”
“No kidding,” Paul said, and actually managed a laugh.  “After spending half the date talking on his phone?”
“I know,” she replied.
They were coming up on a bench.  There was an old woman sitting there, drinking a coffee and knitting a red sweater.  When Paul saw her, he froze.  Then he started to sob.
The woman looked scared to death, which made absolute sense to Jordan.  Generally, people don’t start crying at the sight of art projects.  “Sorry,” she said, and started pulling Paul away, “I’m really sorry.”  She drug him down the path, trying to figure out what about that old woman had made Paul so upset.

Paul-

If it had only been Maureen, Paul thought, maybe he could stand it a little better.  He dressed in the bedroom they had shared for three years, where her side of the bed still smelled a little like her.  He had loved her since the first day he met her, and when she died it broke his heart.  But if it had only been her, he supposed it would have healed.
Jordan was pulling up.  She’d been so great though all this, the only person he’d had to rely on.  He had put so much of this on her, even though he knew she must be hurting too.
So when she suggested a walk through the park and breakfast at the diner, he gave her a smile and said yes.
And at first, he really did feel better.  Listening to Jordan babble, walking with her in the sunlight, he felt warm for the first time since Maureen died.
Then he saw the woman, knitting a sweater with red yarn.
Maureen had laughed at him when he brought her that red yarn and a pair of knitting needles.  “I hope those are for decoration,” she’d said, “because I don’t knit.”
“Yeah, but you’re going to be a mommy now,” Paul had told her with a laugh.  “Everybody’s mother should knit.”
He couldn’t help it.  He started to weep.
If it had only been Maureen, he supposed he could have healed.  But knowing there would have been a baby, and now there never would be?  He didn’t believe he would never be warm again.

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Before we start, I would just like to say a few words about the loss of Alan Rickman. He was a great actor, and I adored him. He was in so many things I loved, like Dogma, Alice in Wonderland, Die Hard, and Harry Potter. Unlike some actors and comedians we’ve lost in the last few years, Mr. Rickman was young enough that I feel sure we would have seen more characters come alive through him, and I am truly saddened by that loss. Rest in peace, sir. I’ll always be thankful for what you gave the world.

I’ve always had a hard time making my mind up about anything. I get bored easily, and it’s hard for anything to keep my attention for very long. This might sound like a really stupid thing for me to say, because I’m writing a fantasy series with an estimated fourteen book story arch. But it’s hard to keep focus on a project for that long!

One of the ways I keep the focus is by not keeping the focus. I work on shorter projects while I’m working on Woven, unless I’m writing a rough draft.

The problem comes, sometimes, with transitioning. I really do want to work on something different, but if it’s another fiction piece I too often find myself writing from the point of view of a Woven character, even if I’m calling them by a different name. Now that I’m working on a novella that’s a totally different genre, it’s something I needed to get under control.

As usually, Writing Excuses saved me. I was listening to one of the last episodes of Season 10, Moving On. (click here to listen to it.) They were talking about transitioning from one piece to the next. They talked about different lighting, moods, and locations. What struck me as the best idea, however, was music. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that music is important to me. It’s a mood elevator, a distraction, a way to block out that chewing sound Oliver drop that! So, I decided to take their good advice.

I jumped on Pandora, and made a channel for Woven. If you’re wondering, I started it with Lindsay Stirling and NightWish. Then, I made one for the new secret project. It’s playlist was inspired by Linken Park, Limp Bizkit and Orgy. I’m interested in seeing how this will inspire me over the next week.

What rocked last week

• I’m kind of loving Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson this week. I’ve been listening to it on Audible. It’s nice to be able to listen to a book while my hands are busy. I’m anticipating a lot more reading now.
• My anniversary with my darling husband was on Friday. We went to dinner at the same place we went after our ceremony, and took our picture at Diamond Park, where we were married. Oh, and we went to see Star Wars, because we are nerds.

What I’m looking forward to this week

• There’s only one real thing I’m looking forward to this week, and that’s the launch of my first book, Thirty Days To Thirty Ideas. I can’t think of a better way to start my year than by publishing my first book. I hope that all of you get a chance to get it, because I wrote it for you. That’s why I’ve offered it free to pre order with offer code 30one. If you haven’t ordered it yet, please click here to do so now.

Let me know what you’re excited about this week below. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

I would like to take today to remind everybody that the number one killer of New Year Resolutions is to have a day when life happens and get discouraged.

We got a new puppy. In unrelated news, I’m behind on everything.

It’s not because he encourages me to play with him instead of writing. Okay, it’s partially because of that. But it’s mostly because he needs attention or he’ll shred the damn house. It’s like having a kid all over again, except he won’t watch Baby Einstein so I can get something done for ten freaking minutes!

So the other day, I was hard at work editing, and Oliver was going insane. I was going a little insane, too. I didn’t like the chapter, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Then, I had a spastic dog to deal with on top of that, so you know nothing was getting done. I wanted to work, and it just wasn’t going to happen until I did something about the damn dog! So, I took him for a walk, in the hopes of getting his energy out a little.

That didn’t work, but something else happened. I was walking around my neighborhood, which I don’t do a lot. We just moved in a few months ago, and I’m still not familiar with the place, yet. So because I don’t want to get lost, I pay attention to where we’re going. I wasn’t paying attention to my story, and how stuck I was on this sucky chapter.

I met a neighbor I hadn’t yet. We saw another dog, and he and Oliver made friends. And when I finally got back to my desk, I had a solution for my chapter.

Basically, if I had tried to stick to the plan, I would have had a frantic dog, a chapter I still wasn’t happy about, and probably some puppy pee thrown in there for good measure.

I’m sure I have a thousand stories of kids who needed attention, medical emergencies that required a total shift of plans, or any number of things that might take my lovely time blocked day and toss it on its ear. These things are never going to go away. I will never write in a bubble, so I must learn how to deal with life in a sensible way. Here’s what I do when life gets in the way of my to do list.

Plan first to avoid it

I have done post after post about how I have taught my monsters to honor my writing time. My husband is the homemaker, and knows that my writing is for the better of us all eventually. (He also knows I get grouchy without some writing time.) I have a job I can’t get emergency called in on. I do my best to plan my productive hours for times I know the distractions will be limited. School hours, time the kids are playing outside, that sort of thing. A lot of this comes under common sense. I’m not getting any writing done while the monsters are getting ready for school, or while we’re making dinner, or during Steelers games.

React with understanding

But when something does happen, I have to be cool about it. First off, I’m a mom. While the kids need to respect my time, I need to respect that they can’t always. At eleven, there are still things they need me to do for them. There are always going to be times when they are just freaking out and need their mom.

If you’re not a parent, though, there is still no reason to throw a hissy fit because you didn’t get the productive time you thought you were going to. First off, you’re probably a grown up, and hissy fits are beneath you. Second, it wastes energy that you could be using to fix the problem. Third, and most importantly, you’re guaranteeing that you will have no happiness from whatever has distracted you from your writing. More on that next.

Savor life

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Savoring life is all when and good when your distraction was a puppy that needed love from his new mommy. Or when your daughter’s internet boyfriend broke up with her and she needed to be distracted with Jenna Marbles videos. Except that you didn’t get those moments if you did your best to just deal with the situation and move on. Band aid solutions, or pawning something off on someone else will not give you a happy moment.

But what if something actually bad wrecked your day?

I might have mentioned before, my husband has some health issues. Sometimes that means he isn’t feeling well, so I’ve got to take over household stuff. Sometimes that means we’re going to the emergency room. Let me tell you, the first time you’re trying to entertain your kids in the emergency waiting room while your husband is maybe dying I don’t know and what if he dies, what the hell am I going to do, am I going to have to quit my job, holy crap I’m going to be a widow I’m not even thirty yet! (Gasp!) it’s sort of stressful. The last time, I was amused by the fact that the vending machine gave me dollar coins back.

That point aside, you have got to learn to take the bad times and make something good from them. If that means health concerns or just a busy day, it makes no difference.

Come back and regroup

If you can, come back to your desk. If it’s only been an hour or two, you will probably just have to kick it up a notch. However, you might need to take a look at your to do list and re prioritize it.

If you’re coming back the next day, take a deep breath and forget it. Just make a new to do list and move on.

Time for something classic, I think. Tin House is a classic literary magazine, and they like to do themed issues. The issue that they’re collecting stories for now has the most classic theme imaginable. Sex.

The issue will be titled, Sex, Again? which I have to tell you, made me laugh.

Genre- They, being a literary magazine, are rather anti genre. So don’t worry about it.

Word Count- 10,000 limit.

Submission Date- February 28

Wait time- Six months

Rights- Not listed.

Payout-Not listed.

Here is your link to full submission guidelines.

Want even more markets? Subscribe to Road To Full Time to get the ever growing list of freelance markets.

In the last quarter of 2015 I took a break  from reading fantasy books and read three autobiographies from funny female comedians. One More Time, by Carol Burnett, Bossypants by Tina Fey and Yes Please by Amy Poehler.

I actually read Yes Please at first because it seemed like a companion book to Bossypants. (Here‘s a link to my review of that.) But I loved it for itself in the end.

Fey and Poehler get compaired a lot. They work together a lot, had similar upbringings, and similar career arches. Personally, I have always been a bigger fan of Fey. 30 Rock is one of my favorite shows, and I like seeing someone be mean to people who deserve it. The woman is my hero.

But the better part of me wants to be like Amy Poehler. I love Poehler as a person. Her entire outlook on life is one that I think we should all aspire to. Here are the lessons I took away from Yes, Please.

• Insist upon being who you are, but don’t be a jerk about it. That’s right there in the title.
• Don’t worry too much about people patting you on the back for your work. Just keep working. In her words, don’t want the pudding.
• It’s okay to not have a plan. That was something that threw me about the book at first. It’s not in any sort of order. She flips back and forth from her child, to early days in improve, to stories from SNL, to Parks and Rec. It was confusing, but very entertaining.
• Sometimes you’ve got to suck it up and deal with it. She spent a lot of time starting out living in crappy houses and working crappy jobs so that she could have enough time to devote to her craft.
• Pay it forward! Poehler and the Upright Citizen’s Brigade has a whole improv school, teaching a new generation of comedians. How cool is that?
• Keep your shitty opinions of someone to yourself. I’m going to tiptoe around this, but at one point Poelher was married to another comedian I love, Will Arnett. You know what? She doesn’t have a bad word to say about him. Or if she does, she doesn’t say it out loud. If we ever needed a reminder that it is possible to get divorced and not become an asshole to someone you used to love enough to make a life with, she’s it.
• Be honest, though. She does say in her book that she suffered from depression. I’m always saying that when people are honest about mental disease, it makes it easier for others to be honest.
• If you have kids, put them first. Reading this book, you can tell that Poelher loves her kids more than anything else. She works hard, but she puts those boys first.
• Apologize if you feel like you should. There was an incident, you can read about it in the book, where an SNL joke got some people pissed off at her. She didn’t write the joke, and didn’t even realize how it might offend anyone at the time, but she still got blamed for it. Personally, I don’t think that warrants an apology on her part, but she felt like it did. Ans she waited to long to give it, in her opinion.

I highly advise Yes, Please. I had a lot of fun reading it, and I think you will to.

What did you think of Yes,Please? Let us know in the comments below.

For most of my life, I have been a really big believer in following the rules. I was raised Mormon, but I was also raised by a mother who was unhealthy and unhappy. She did everything that everyone said you shouldn’t do when you’re brought up in The Church.

And so I got sort of a black and white view of the world. My friends had moms who were happily married, didn’t work outside the home, were deeply involved in the Relief Society and the Young Women’s organization. They all had dads who went to work, then came home and played games with their kids before reading out of the scriptures and sending them to bed. In my house, my mom worked a lot, smoked, didn’t go to church, saw a lot of guys, and drank too much. I was largely pitied in my group of church friends.

It took a lot of growing up to realize that there was more to this world than Mormons and people who were wrong. It took years for me to grow up and realize that everything should be questioned, and that we should listen to our own ‘still small voice’. It took me a long time to trust myself enough to do what I thought was right.

Sometimes, though, I need a reminder.

I told you all last month that I’ve spent years trying to break into traditional publishing. I wanted to try indie publishing this year, and see if it doesn’t fair better for me.

Then the worst thing that can happen to someone with a history of self doubt happened. Someone I trust did a whole podcast about how ‘you’ve just got to keep trying.’ Keep sending out that manuscript. Keep finding new markets to send your work to. Keep going! And it made me doubt. Indie publishing is, for the most part, throwing the rules out of the window. And so, I doubted my intentions. Am I just self publishing because I’m sick of rejection? Am I after a quick high? Am I taking a short cut, being lazy instead of paying my writing dues?

At this point I’m going to ask any indie writers reading this not to scream at me too loud. These were my own uncertainties talking, and I think I’ve managed to shut them the hell up.

Just in case I slip again, or if you yourself have had these same doubts about self publishing, I’ve made a shield. Feel free to use this anytime you like.

1. Indie writers face rejection every day. A book may fail, a promotional event may flop. A project that you poured your heart into might get a ‘meh’ response. But at least my failure is my own, and I can try harder next time. This means that my success is my own, as well.
2. There is nothing quick about self publishing. If you’re doing it right, you still put the same amount of ass in chair time. Then you’ve got to make the product, including the cover. (I’m having a terrible time with the cover for Days, if anyone knows an artist who could use some quick low budget work.) Then, promotion takes forever if done right.
3. Indie writers are anything but lazy. A traditional writer creates a book, and that’s years of work right there. An indie writer does that, then we become a promotion specialist. Tech support. Editor. Social Media specialist. Artist. I also have to look up how to apply for an ISBN number. Oh, throw copyright lawyer in there.

Now, I am not saying that indie writing is the only way to go. But we need to listen to our ‘still small voice,’ and decide what’s best for us.

What Rocked This Week

• I’m finally in the swing of my new writing schedule, so I’m actually getting stuff done again.
• Rough drafts always make me happy, even more so with new projects. I can not wait to tell you all what I’ve been working on, but it’s in the very early stages still.

What I’m looking forward to this week.

• I’ve got some fun work to do with Patreon this week. If you don’t follow me now, check it out. I’ll be adding some videos, so you can see what I actually look like. (The dog will probably also be in the video, because he will not leave me alone.)
• It’s official, Thirty Days, Thirty Ideas the book comes out in nine days. I am so excited for my very first book launch, and I hope you are, too! (Also, if you haven’t pre ordered it yet, here‘s a link. Don’t forget, offer code 30one gets it for you for free!)

Have you struggled with self doubt? What did you do to overcome it?

I have tried a lot of planning methods. I mean, a lot. I always have this push, this need, to be more productive. I’m a competitive person who has learned that competing against other people is super unhealthy. So, I compete against my past self. I’m always convinced that a new planner, a new method, a new to do list will help me beat old me.

Some of these methods work great. You’ve heard of my love for Bullet Journals, The Pomodoro Method and the Erin Condron Planner. (None of these are affiliates. I just like them all.) Some were a big fat waste of my time. I don’t always lay blame on the systems. I suffer from adult ADD, depression and a general lack of follow through. Here’s the thing, though, I’m not alone. Lots of people suffer from these things, and we still want to get things done.

So here’s what makes a planning method work well, and what makes them fail.

They’re too vague

Say it with me, sisters and brothers, a vague goal is no goal at all. You can say that you want to be a writer. Say that this is the year you want to get published. Super! How you gonna do it? This is why New Year resolutions fail all the time. Lose weight, be more organized, save money. They’re all great things to strive for, but they’re nothing without actual, actionable steps.

They’re not fun

I’ll be totally honest, Bullet Journaling would never have worked for me if it weren’t for washi tape, stickers and Moleskines. I work really hard, and I need to have some fun in my life. Planning is one way to put a little fun into my day, as nerdy as that sounds. Basically, of you don’t want to do it, there’s a good chance you probably won’t.

They’re too much fun

The other side of the coin is that a planner isn’t a toy. A planning method isn’t a toy, and if I am having fun planning and forget to actually get shit done it’s a waste. Yes, I had a lot of fun on the hours I spent with my books and pens, but I could have just gotten it done, finished my to do list, and then played a video game.

They don’t fit your actual lifestyle

I got this really awesome planner at the start of 2015. At least, I thought it was. But the problems with the damn thing became apparent as soon as I took it out of the box. It was too small, a whole week on one page the size of a paperback. It was full of pages that I had no need for. Vacation planning? I intentionally didn’t plan a vacation last year, so there was a wasted page. A gardening calendar when I didn’t have a yard, budgeting on just one page for the whole year?  It was not for me. I ditched it in June and got my EC planner. Love it!

They take too much time

Anything that takes a whole lot of time is going to become a chore. I need planning that can be done in a few minutes, at most an hour. It usually takes me about ten minutes to make my plans for the day, an hour on Sundays to plot the week, another hour on the first day of the month to plan for that.

Don’t be afraid to try different ways to plan your life. But remember that the whole point of a planning method is to help you get things done. If it doesn’t help you, it’s not right for you.

I actually haven’t ran across this magazine before, but I can’t not love their title. “Strong Words For A Polite Nation.”

This literary magazine works on a theme for every issue. Their submissions for the 73rd issue is open now, and the theme is Secrets.

Can you think of a more provocative theme? What great story doesn’t have a great secret? Even better, who doesn’t have a secret or two to share?

Genre- Fiction, non fiction, and poetry.

Submission date- February 15

Word Count- 3,000 for fiction and non fiction

Wait Time- Not listed

Payout- $50 per page or poem

Rights- Not listed

Here is your link to the full submission guidelines.

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