I haven’t written a short story in a long time. My head space has been in novels for a few years now. Last year I wrote two novels and no short stories. This year I will write two more novels but already, I have written a new short story. Currently I’m editing this short story but as of this writing I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. I really don’t want to send it out and wait forever for everyone to reject it. That does me nothing. My stories all tend to be set in the Star Saga universe and they don’t typically appeal to mainstream SF magazines. So why even bother?
This particular short is set before a novella that I will write this year, so I get to explore the world where that novel is set and get to know it a bit before I start the novel. It has value to my readers, both of them, but not to people unfamiliar with my universe. I mean who the hell wants to read about an ace starfighter pilot struggling to overcome the odds of surviving being shot down in enemy territory. NOBODY. There’s no value in a straight up adventure story with heavy WWII inspiration.
One or both of my readers probably think that it sounds like a kick ass story. They are probably reading this right now and chomping at the bit for me to say that I’m gonna post that story here on the blog or upload it to Amazon so they can get it. But that’s only two readers. When they finish it, they will crawl back in their reader holes and never tell anyone. So the story dies on the vine like all those other stories on Amazon right now.
There really isn’t any monetary value at all in writing short stories in a universe that has two readers. Which is why I’ve chosen to focus on the novels until I get all three books of the first trilogy written.
But I’m not going to let this story sit on my cloud drive and collect dust bunnies. I think I’ll send it to my newsletter subscribers and let them read it. At least a few of them might enjoy it. After that I’ll be so busy writing novels, I won’t have much time to mess with it. So if that kind of a story appeals to you, the only way you’ll be able to read it for now, is to join Dispatches, my newsletter. I’ll be releasing it sometime this month.