This week: Now What? Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Now What?
Your story is completed and entered into a contest. The reviews on the work are complimentary. You think you did a great job. Now what?
Submit it for publication! --- Okay, where?
It's time to venture out. I put the phrase "places to submit short stories" in Google's search field and came up with a LOT of sites listing places to submit.
Now comes the hard part. Yes! Publication is hard! It takes a lot of time to sift through all the possibilities and choose the ones that suit your story. I don't feel contests outside our community are helpful and often charge to submit. That's your choice. There are tons of other places that might accept your story without cash investment.
The publisher might pay you. According to one of the articles I read, the current minimum professional fee is eight cents-per-word. Once you find a site and look it over to become familiar with them, finding the place to submit is tricky. I swear, they hide it just to filter out the vast number of authors sending in their stories. 
Be brave! Send that stuff out! In truth, you'll get plenty of rejections. The good news is, only you see them. Even if the story is good, sometimes publishers don't have the space that month to fit your work in their templates. One of my goals this summer is to try...at least try to send out a few submissions and see what happens. Years ago, another WDC author read one of my stories and encouraged me to submit a revised version to a publisher where she had been accepted. I fine-tuned my work and submitted it. In a few days, I had a contract in my email. I didn't make a ton of money and the publisher is long gone, but what an experience!
So, look around. Be encouraging to your fellow WDC members and, as always Write On!
This month's question: Do you have publishing goals?
Do you write to suit a current popular publication genre ?
Answer below  Editors love feedback! 
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CURRENT SITE CONTEST
Character Prompt for May 2023:
An opsimath is someone who begins to learn or study only late in life.
Write a story about an opsimath of an unusual field or subject matter.
Excerpt: It had all come down to this. Frank "The Tank" Franklin (Frankie Frank to his friends) had stalked the beast for days. He waded through hours of pure hell to get there. Fought creatures that had been rigged to explode with magic and fire to get close to the mountain.
| | Bent (13+)
If you're not the one doing the bending, you're the one being bent.
#2293003 by WriterAngel  |
Excerpt: I should have known better.
Funny how that thought, not memories of my life, flickered through my battered brain as the barrel of the orc’s blaster swung around to consume my entire field of vision. I squeezed my natural eye shut, willing the aperture of my ocular implant shut as well. Kneeling in the darkness, I couldn't help but imagine my final second of life—the white-hot blast of plasma burrowing through my sizzling skull. Then, I heard the click of the trigger.
| |  | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#2294805 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: “This is not cheating,” Alvin Troyer felt like tearing his hair out of his head. He’d tried and failed doing his own business marketing plan. It had effectively put holes in his early profits like Swiss Cheese.
“You should have paid a marketing agency, fella.” Alice Troyer hissed. The stress of financial failure had put their marriage at risk. Romance had become a gutted candle.
Excerpt: Haven!” Papa’s voice always brings to mind thunder. This particular clap crackled up the elegant staircase and into the library where I sat with my twin sister and the middle of her three daughters. “That lover of yours is up to his shenanigans again!”
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#2295046 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Lena had always been a tech-savvy person, always on the lookout for the latest gadgets and software. So when she heard about the new intelligent agent app, she knew she had to try it out.
The app promised to help her with everything from scheduling appointments to managing her finances, all with the help of an AI-powered assistant named Max. Lena was skeptical at first, but after a few days of using the app, she was hooked.
Give this contest a try, win 10,000 gift points!
This contest gives you plenty of time to be musically inspired.
Prompt: May 7 - 13: Nightingale by Demi Levato - This song always felt like a good song to perform for a loved one. It's not typical or as well known but I've always loved it. Think of a good serenade moment and give us a story.
| | | Mall Eyes (E)
Someone watches as a random mall kiosk worker meets people.
#2295292 by ALTA |
Excerpt: She didn’t reject this one. Not that I could hear what she was saying - there was no audio with this camera set-up - but her body language was more welcoming this time.
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This month's question: Do you have publishing goals?
Do you write to suit a current popular publication genre ?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Action/Adventure Newsletter (April 12, 2023)" question: What is your biggest fear when making your work public?
dogpack:saving 4 premium: DWG  : I have been blessed because I played music professionally many years ago and was able to push fear away. I wrote when I was in elementary to junior high school but it wasn't working for me so, I stopped for many years. A short while before joining WDC I started writing again. SUBcinaioualy I must have been gathering the tools for writing. I do not remember fear getting in my way and have continued writing as time and energy permit.
buddhangela's Wounded Not Dead  : Biggest fear? I used to have serious impostor syndrome and sharing my work would end with being found out as a fraud: I'm no writer, I don't belong. Since having my work reviewed on WdC and getting to know this community a little better, my fear is more of releasing an item for review that ends with me feeling embarrassed or ashamed of myself because it isn't as good as it should have been. Ouch, yeah, perfectionism bites.
––I love the format of this newsletter – great breaks using phobias and quotes. Loved 'em!
Monty  : That I might not have done as good a job as I should have.
BIG BAD WOLF is hopping  : That folks won't see it.
TheBusmanPoet :
If I get the punctuation wrong somewhere but it's not a fear, it is what it is. Human mistakes and if we learn from them, all the better 
As FDR said: The only thing we have to fear is...fear itself. 
bryanmchunter: Executive meddling messing with your vision.
oldgreywolf scribbles : I write for myself first (worldbuilding), then an occasional story for legitimate science fiction readers. The only foreseeable problems would be someone scientifically-illiterate or an old maid reading it, as science fiction also addresses change in society.
N.A Miller : Meddling from other authors when it is written in such a way they try to change it to their way of thinking taking out the creativity of the author who wrote it.
s  : As a beginner writer, my biggest fear was that people would hate it. I showed my uncritical friends - which was awful, because their lack if criticism stifled my growth for years - and sent a few off.
Now, I need to clarify something - to me, making my work public only happens when I sell a piece or put it on WdC. I won't do self-publishing, so someone in general has to vet the work before it is made public.
Nowadays, my only fear when submitting a work for publication is when I try a different genre to one I have been regularly published in. That fear is that I am not hitting the new genre well. So far, none of my romance has been published, but I;ve had 2 Westerns done, as well as my regular fantasy, science fiction, horror and poetry.
Bilal Latif : That readers won't like it.
That's a boring but honest answer.
Jimminycritic : Becoming famous and not being able to write to expectations! I know, ridiculous, but my greatest fear in this matter.
buddhangela's Wounded Not Dead : I just  'd three comments, meaning that I could relate. I fear being shamed for offering up crap or thinking that I belong but I really don't. I'm afraid of not finishing what I've started (I've yet to finish a longer story since I came to WdC...coincidence, or just distractability (lol)?) And yes - I want to validate Jimminycritic 's comment, too: it's scary to have someone really like something you write. It adds this new pressure that you can't disappoint them – not after they've given you a compliment or a really positive review. (An actual reason I didn't finish one of my stories - what if the people who really liked the beginning read the rest and wondered what the heck happened to me that the story would crash like that?)  That's why I just close my eyes and hit save. Put it out there and let it go. 
Jayne  : Jimminycritic fear of success is is a real thing, for the exact reasons you mentioned. It's not ridiculous to experience the fear, nor is it ridiculous to think you might write something that gains fans. Besides, the fear of success bleeds all over many facets of our lives, so it's well worth acknowledging.
Khola Mousethyme : That I'm never going to finish anything I've started.
Rose  : That people will dislike it and shame it-
Crystal Dragon : All my stuff is public. What I write, my social media, photos, artwork, resume, etc. My life history is totally public and I have posted lots of poems/lyrics/thoughts that are still in "draft" format. I am not afraid. What's gonna happen? People will say/write mean things about me? People might gossip and spread rumors? That's just like what happens during the school dayz. Bring it on!🌺
Leslie Loo : Harsh critiques or how people would react to them.
elephantsealer : My biggest fear when I make my work public is "rejection"... "flat rejection"...
Elisa the Bunny Stik  : That I'll be taken to court for libel. I'be already faced the threat of a lawsuit once.
Arsuit : That what I write ends up being unoriginal.
Tina Lina Ruby Ray : I have no fear. This is my world. I love it. I live it. Visitors are welcome there.
joemjackson : Fear? Eh... I've been dead. What's fear?
Massive Friendly Derg  : That everything will go wrong & have the WDC community mad at me like my first raffle.
Bob : I took my first self published sci-fi book to a local bookstore and asked the clerk to offer it to an appropriate customer for a beta read. "Oh, I know just the right person, he's an engineer and loves science fiction." I went back to see what he had to say about my work. His reply was, "I'd read his stuff."
Every author's greatest fear, is the fear of rejection.
Hector Scofield : silence
KentFellow : Misinterpretation
Moonstone : That no one will see it. I feel like I have talent and have been told so by almost every adult in my life, however I'm scared if I do ever publish something, nobody will ever see it. I guess that's kinda why I joined Writing.com!!
Delia Parsnip : That people will read what I’ve written and decide that it’s not fit to wipe their bottom with.
LinnAnn -book writer  : That I'll die before I get published.
Dave Ryan : I'm a novice at writing, and only started as I wished (needed?) to tell the story of how I was bullied in a particularly humiliating way as a teenager and how that had affected me in the long term - I'd kept it bottled up for too long. So my main fear was not about my writing being criticised - I know there is much room for improvement. I was more nervous about putting these intimate details "out there" for anyone to read.
Thank you for your responses, everyone. It's reassuring to know many of us share the same fears.
Leger~
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Action/Adventure: May 10, 2023 Issue [#11960]
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