So, what are you working on right now? I am asked this question often.
Friends, family, and colleagues will ask me this when catching up; people I meet will ask me this when I tell them I’m a writer. Coincidentally, I’ve found quite a few people asking me this in the past week, so I’ll use this blog post to reflect on my current writing endeavors.
In a recent blog post, I detailed the current flash fiction pieces I’m working on. I am still working on getting those individually published in literary magazines and journals. Submitting to literary magazines takes a lot of time and effort. Each magazine has different submission requirements with formatting guidelines, page limitations, etc. And to increase the likelihood of getting published, one must submit to many–and I mean many!–places (I wrote about this in my last blog post). Although submitting writing for publication isn’t considered actively “writing,” I still consider it as devoted writing time that I must plan and schedule. Since submitting takes so much time and energy, it’s difficult to devote the same amount of time generating flash as I normally do, but I am still attempting to squeeze in some words.
I do have some exciting opportunities coming up. In a few weeks, I will be participating in a Kathy Fish workshop. This is a three-day heads-down intensive online writing workshop led by a flash fiction writer whom I greatly admire. I’ve attended a couple of 60-90 minute generative workshops with Kathy Fish, and they were both wonderful. She has the best writing prompts.
I am also attending a week-long in-person flash fiction writing retreat in the Colorado mountains in August. This workshop is led by Kathy Fish and Nancy Stohlman and will be filled with workshops, independent writing time, feedback sessions, and outdoor activities such as kayaking and hiking. To say I’m excited about this retreat is an understatement. I am so looking forward to learning from the two retreat leaders and meeting fellow flash fiction writers.
Between the workshop and the retreat, I hope to produce a good amount of flash fiction pieces. Between what I included in my chapbook (published last year), and the pieces I wrote/will write this year, I aim to put them all into a full-length collection of stories. Then comes the grueling process of submitting the collection to presses for publication, but that will probably happen sometime next year.
I hope this all answers the question: So, what are you working on right now?
