Hello, dreamers. The 2026 Olympic Winter Games are over. That means the road to the next one begins today. I am not entering my next Winter Olympiad.

As tends to be the case, the Olympics have left me inspired. Much as I’m sad to see them go, I’m eager to get back to work. I have a list of writing-related things to do over the coming week, the next month, the next year, and beyond. Thinking about where I want my writing to be four years from now has provided a shocking level of clarity.

For the time being, I’m looking at this as an opportunity for a full assessment of my writing efforts and an effective resent. That said, here’s what I’ll be doing this week:

Comprehensive Audit

I’m starting this week with a full audit of all my ongoing writing projects. This is, I’ll admit, something I (and, I dare say, most writers) don’t do as often as I should. Really, it should become part of my annual routine. But that’s something I can start next year. This year, it’s happening now.

There’s a running joke within the writing community: “If you don’t have at least twenty unfinished projects, are you really a writer?” The joke references the tendency of writers to be somewhat flaky, abandoning long-running projects for a new, shiny story idea. As longtime readers no, I pride myself on not doing that. I seldom, if ever, have twenty unfinished projects (even counting short fiction). But I do tend to have a backlog of unfinished works at any given time.

The reason for this comes back to something I’ve said a lot over the past year: writing isn’t an exact science. It’s intuitive, at least to an extent. Over time, you learn to tell the difference between “I want to stop writing this story because I’ve got this shiny new idea and just want to write that,” and “I want to stop writing this story because it’s just not working.”

There can be any number of reasons for me to abandon a story. But usually, it happens because I just don’t feel like it’s the right time to write the story. Sometimes it happens because I realize a short story I’m writing should actually be a novella, or even a novel. Sometimes it’s because the story will require deep research I’m unable or unwilling to do at the time. Sometimes I’m just not feeling it. And as I’ve said before, unless I’m working on a “struggle story”, I won’t force myself to write something I don’t want to write. I’ve learned that a story I force myself to write will read like it was written at gunpoint.

The thing is, in most cases once I’ve begun writing a story I have a set window in which I can finish it. My personal tastes in writing change periodically. More importantly, my style is constantly evolving. If I spend too long away from a story, sooner or later I’ll progress to the point where I can never finish it. Doing so would require a comprehensive rewrite, and at that point I’m better off just starting from scratch.

The unfortunate upshot of this is that, at any given time, I have around ten pieces of fiction (of various lengths) that I’ve written parts of but haven’t finished. And if I’m being honest, many of them will never be finished. They’re relics of an earlier stage of my writing career. So, as I sit in the Olympic afterglow, caught up in notions of personal growth, I feel now is the time to cast a critical eye on some of my languished projects, and determine whether or not I will ever actually finish them.

Querying Seven Days on Samarkand

With my third rejection coming last week, the waiting resumes. At this point most of my queries are around four weeks old (happy birthday, queries!), which means I can expect responses to start trickling in over the coming week or two. Of course, there’s a good chance at least some will never garner a response. Them’s the breaks.

In any event, it’s never too early to start thinking about the next round. So, once I’ve completed my comprehensive audit over the next few days, I’ll be reopening my query materials. This process will start with a complete rethink of my opening pages. I’ve received some feedback from critique partners that suggests I might do well to tighten my opening pages, sharpening voice and introducing the initial conflict sooner.

Since I still have queries outstanding, any attempt to do this will start by creating a separate file. There’s still a chance one or more of the agents I’ve queried will see nothing wrong with my opening pages. If that’s so, no need to make changes. What do I know? If my winning story from Writers of the Future taught me anything, it’s that maybe I’m not the best judge of my own work.

I’m also going to dive back into comps research in the coming weeks. After reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, I’ve learned two things:

One, it’s a very funny, very entertaining book.

Two, it’s probably a very bad title to comp to.

There has to be recent sci-fi out there that could reasonably be comped to my book. I just need to find it. So in the next week or two, I’m going to be submitting to the podcast “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing”, both for their “Books with Hooks” segment and their monthly comps special.

Short Fiction

As far as actual writing goes, I plan to stick with short fiction for the time being, starting by completing my current story. Work was painfully slow during the Olympics (which soaked up most of what would normally be my writing time), but I have a pretty clear idea of where I want to take this story right now. With any luck, I’ll be able to knock it out by the end of the week. Then I can start the new month with a new story.

I do still have two outstanding short story submissions. Asimov’s has finally gotten rolling again; their editorial staff is still reeling from the recent hospitalization of longtime editor and bastion of science fiction Sheila Williams. They are working through a significant backlog, and their current average response time appears to be around 75 days, so it could still be a solid month before I receive a response.

Beyond that, things are fairly quiet on the short fic submission front. With two of my usual targets closed to me (Asimov’s has one of my stories already, and Analog is closed to me until autumn after they picked one of my stories up), I find myself in a situation I haven’t faced in years: with a significant backlog of submittable short fiction and nowhere to submit to.

Later this week, I’ll be conducting my monthly short fiction market research. When I do that, in addition to any new paying markets, I’ll also be looking for anthologies and short fiction contests. One of my goals for the year is to publish at least two more short fiction pieces. And self-publishing doesn’t count.

…However, I have once again been considering self-publishing a short story collection. I’ve learned a lot about publishing (and self-pub) over the past year. By autumn, I expect to have at least enough short fiction pieces that have been through their paces on submission to put together a collection. And by then I should have sufficient name recognition to persuade readers to spring for a cheap collection of short fic.

Upcoming Content

As I mentioned last week, I have officially launched my Substack: Martians and Lasers. If you haven’t already, head to Substack and subscribe here. It’s free, and you’ll get lots of cool content you won’t find here.

For the time being, at least, I’ve decided to continue giving readers a schedule of my upcoming content here on this site. All upcoming posts will be available here unless otherwise noted. That said, here’s what you can expect from me in the week to come:

Friday: “Science in Fiction: Little Green Men”

Available on Substack

At long last, my most popular series of monthly posts makes the move to Substack! This month: aliens. Intelligent alien life is a big part of science fiction. Learn more about how aliens have been portrayed in science fiction, what modern science has to say, and how that can inform sci-fi writers in their portrayal of alien intelligence.

Sunday: “Dear Sir or Madam“

On Sunday, watch for my latest update on my querying journey, and learn more about comp titles, and why they’re so important.

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