Submitting My Work: The September Submission Challenge

I've written a lot more things than have made it into print. I'm learning, as I work to build a writing career, that submitting your work is another part time job.

I'm working five jobs now, by my reckoning:

Full time middle school teachingFull time mothering teenagers and a rescue dog, and running a householdThis part is getting easier now that my girls are older; and I'm lucky in having a hands-on partner, too. Part time writingPart time marketing my already published writingPart time submitting my writing (or preparing it for indie publishing: I'm working on my first all-indie project now!)
Whew! Starting to wonder when I'm going to sleep. Still, I love all these jobs and I'm not-so-secretly a work-aholic, so this is a very "me" kind of schedule.

Another writer (Ray Daley) laid down a gauntlet this September, proposing a September Submission Challenge, in which you submit one piece of your writing every day this month. He even made a calendar of suggested venues to submit, too, and since he's a speculative fiction writer like me, I'll be giving a lot of these a try.

So, here on Labor Day, I'm one ahead! I plan to update this post as I go as a way to track what I've done.

Sunday, September 1st: I sent my science fiction story, "The New Guy"  (3172 words) to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. According to my Duotrope stats, they have rejected six of my short stories previously, four of them with personal comments/critique. (That's a big deal, and encouraging from a larger venue like this one).

Monday, September 2nd: I sent "Gifts of the Mag-Eyes" (7577 words) to Clarkesworld, Ray's suggested venue for today. Clarkesworld has rejected five of my short stories previously; they don't generally give personal commentary, but they do have fast turn around, so they don't leave you hanging.

As a bonus, I sent "The Urgings of Ravens" (1652 words) to Lackington's special issue on Birds. I happened to run across the call in an email from Authors Publish with themed publication calls, and took that as my impetus to finish a story I started quite some time back (2015, I think).

Check back later to see how the rest of the month goes. I'll update with what I'm submitting and how it goes for me!