Forty-Nine

Well, gang, we're down to the wire. I'm forty-nine years old today, and that means there's only one year left to achieve this blog's original goal: write one thousand stories meant for publication by the time I'm fifty years old.

Let's look at the tally, shall we? Right. So all I have to do is write eight-hundred and thirty-five more stories in the next year. Okay, so much for that goal.

But if you've been following this blog for a while, you know I gave up on that goal a couple of years ago, if not longer. My goal is still to write a thousand stories,time limit or no. At the pace I'm currently going, death will come before I hit three hundred stories.

My life is super busy right now. I've got two jobs and I'm taking classes to get a better job in the library system and say goodbye to retail forever. If everything goes well, I may have a lot more time in about twenty months. In the meantime let's enjoy what we can.

My story, Stars so Sharp They Break the Skin (number 164 of The One-Thousand), comes out next week in the May issue of Apex. I'll post a link when it's up. The issue will also feature an interview with me by Andrea Johnson.

Over at https://www.patreon.com/matthewsanbornsmith the mangoes are still coming out, slowly but steadily, as well as new stories, video and audio extras, and some terrible, terrible art by yours truly.

No matter what happens, I'm always moving forward. Even when I'm moving backward. Because I turn around.

Sale!

Three days ago, I sold my story, "Stars So Sharp They Break the Skin," (164 of The One-Thousand) to Apex Magazine. I'm quite pleased, especially since I've gone through a bit of a drought. It's been over a year and a half since my last sale, and two and a half since my last sale to a pro market. It took me fifteen tries to get into Apex. I'll let you guys know when the story is published.

163 and 164

I've been my usual lax self here. Forgot to mention I finished a flash piece in July called Outvasion (that's 163) and a 5,000 word short story in October called Stars so Sharp They Pierce the Skin (that's 164).

I've had very little time for writing the last month, between two jobs and life outside of those. I've mostly been working on Mango scripts for the Patreon and a little bit on "Hive Five."

My netbook, which has been pretty good to me for the more than seven years I've had it, is now causing me enough problems that I went and ordered a refurbished desktop, just so I can write and podcast without wanting to kill things and smash objects. I should be getting the other machine in a couple of days. I really hope it works and doesn't crap out on me.