Hello, dreamers. NaNoWriMo 2025 is in the books, so to speak. With that behind me, I enter the final month of the year.

As it is for most people, December is a busy month for me. It’s also busy for me in terms of writing. Much of my writing efforts in December revolve around tying up loose ends: editing, auditing existing projects, and determining my direction for the coming year. With all that going on, I often switch gears in my actual writing and focus on short fiction. That said, here’s what I’ll be up to this week:

Aquarius 1

As I mentioned in yesterday’s NaNo recap, I did in fact hit my 50k goal (and exceeded it somewhat). As I also mentioned, this novel still isn’t even close to complete. I’m confident I’m nowhere near halfway through. However, I took my foot off the gas over the past few days, content to give myself time to breathe. Now, I plan to spend part of the coming week looking at the path ahead, and determining how to proceed.

I will likely begin with a full editing pass. Part of the idea of NaNoWriMo is to keep writing, no matter what. By necessity, things end up a little rough. I’m also concerned that I still haven’t actually read through the entire work thus far; when writing a novel I keep chapters in progress in a separate file, then add them to the manuscript. I’ve been so focused on moving forward that I’ve largely eschewed my customary practice of pausing every few chapters and reading back through everything. Already I fear there are continuity errors, and I haven’t infused the early chapters with enough foreshadowing of the plot.

From there, I face a difficult decision: do I step away for a while, possibly even a few months, or forge ahead and see how far I can go? My decision is complicated by looming tasks: over the coming month I want to polish the rest of my existing short fiction manuscripts and locate target markets, and prepare for the coming query window in January. That’s a lot to do while simultaneously drafting a novel. I may ultimately decide to step back, for one major reason: the end of novel-writing season.

For the uninitiated, I often refer to the months of August through November as “Novel Writing Season”. I do this for physiological reasons: our brains follow an annual cycle. Human brain activity peaks during the autumn months, remains relatively high during winter, then begins to decline in spring before reaching its lowest point at the height of summer. As writing a novel is incredibly taxing, I prefer to focus my efforts on novel projects when my brain is operating at peak capacity. Between the holidays, my customary end-of-year writing tasks, and the brain activity cycle, it may be best to put a proverbial pin in Aquarius 1 until next autumn.

Short Fiction

As I mentioned earlier, there’s a good chance I’ll end up pivoting back to short fiction this month. It’ll be easier to balance with query prep, and over the past month I’ve come up with a lot of cool ideas for short stories I’m eager to explore. But this is also a strategic move.

Recent market research has confirmed one of my long-standing suspicions about the short fiction market: long-format stories (novelettes or novellas) are an extremely hard sell for previously unpublished writers. And despite selling two stories over the past several months, that still applies to me. When literary mags publish an issue, they usually list the names of the authors responsible for the issue’s longer pieces on the cover. That means they use those names to sell the issue. And that means those names need to be recognizable.

Thanks to Writers of the Future, I know my name is out there now. The big question is: will it be enough to sell my longer pieces to literary magazines? Given this reality, I’ve been adjusting my strategy for the upcoming submission window. For one, I plan to modify my cover letter to emphasize my win in Writers of the Future (I’ve found mixed messages on whether or not it’s pertinent to mention stories that will appear in print, as opposed to those that have).

However, I may ultimately decide to reserve some of my best (and longest) works for a time. My hope is that once my work has actually appeared in print I’ll find editors more receptive. Until then, I hope to focus on shorter stories that will be easier to market. I currently have all of three pieces of suitable length, two of which have already been rejected by all the major markets (excluding Analog, which, because they recently accepted one of my stories, is closed to me for the next year or so).

Upcoming Content

Between entering a transition at some point in December and looking ahead to the January query window, I’m once again looking over this site with a critical eye. I don’t have any clear ideas yet of what I want to do with it, if anything. But I feel it’s always a good idea to spruce things up ahead of another round of queries, when agents will probably be viewing my site.

That said, here’s what you can expect on this site through the week ahead:

Wednesday: “WIP Wednesday”

My weekly “WIP Wednesday” posts return, as I discuss the coming editing pass through Aquarius 1, and the path forward.

Friday: “Sci-Fi Reviewed: Foundation“

In this month’s “Sci-Fi Reviewed”, I take a look at Foundation, the Apple TV+ adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s epic series of novels, and how Apple managed to transform an admittedly date series of books into the next great sci-fi epic.

Sunday: “Short Fiction Sunday”

No matter what I’m working on, I devote every Sunday to short fiction. This week, and through the next several weeks until I resume my “Dear Sir or Madam” posts, I’ll give readers a privileged glimpse into how short stories make their way through my pipeline, along with sneak peeks on current projects.

It’s going to be another big week. So read on, and dare to dream. – MK