Childhood Dreams
It’s funny how things change. In high school, I planned to be a world-famous novelist. I was going to draw others into my fictional worlds. They would revel in the science of my fiction, the fantasy of my tales, and the horror in my stories!

By the 1990s, I’d matured and knew that I wasn’t as fantastic as I’d once naively thought. I knew I needed to hone my craft, so I did, amidst running a small business. The business allowed me to quit my day job, make more money working fewer hours, and devote more time to writing.

In the late 1990s, I began submitting short stories to magazines, garnering 32 rejections before my first sale. The excitement and exhilaration of that success hooked me! That first story earned ten cents a word—the sort of money you only got from huge publications that ignored nobodies anyway. At 8,800 words, I earned $880.

I was energized, and I craved that feeling like an addict needing a fix. It didn’t matter if the publication paid a hundred bucks or twenty bucks or no bucks; just knowing that a stranger somewhere found my story worth publishing was incredibly satisfying. I sold another 70 stories to magazines and anthologies, and that doesn’t count the online stuff such as the Cud Flashes in the Pan shorts I’ve done for years.

Eventually, though, the excitement waned. As my story inventory thinned, I sent fewer stories out, and I wrote less. I began editing anthologies, for a new challenge—one that came from getting bored of submitting stories. I’d already done plenty of that; I didn’t need to prove anything to myself. Other jobs, such as writing for a newspaper for a decade, got in the way. In 2011, The Cud started publishing my short fiction, which I found satisfied my craving to write, and which held me to a monthly deadline for well over a decade. It didn’t pay, but I didn’t need money. I just enjoyed writing and hoping that someone somewhere might enjoy something I’d written.

In recent years, I began focusing on novels, which had been my original dream as a teenager. I’ve written a few that are ready to start submitting. It’s another new challenge, and one more sign of having moved on.

Adult Ego
After that first exciting story sale, I resolved that, once I had fifteen or twenty stories in print, I’d publish a collection. But life, that constant obstacle, got in the way of that, too. Recently, I realized I’d never gotten around to that collection. I had to sift through those 70-plus published stories and decide what to include. Doing so was surprisingly difficult: My ego was having a hard time choosing for this vanity project. Plus, how could I mix sci-fi, fantasy, and horror?

I decided I’d do three volumes, one for each genre, and tie them together with a prologue and epilogue that told a frame story across those three volumes. And like some of my favorite big authors, I’d add notes about the stories in the back of the book for those who cared. This vanity project was getting more vain with each passing day, but I didn’t care. I was having fun.

Some published stories I omitted. Some unpublished stories I added in. Some I’d done in Cud Flashes made the cut. Screw it; this was MY vanity project, so I might as well do it my way. I planned to guilt all my friends and family into buying copies. Remember all that free computer work I’ve done for you? Those many lunches you said you’d get next time? The times I declined gas money for rides? Here’s your chance!

I wouldn’t gouge anyone. If they couldn’t afford the cover price, what could they afford? Less? Production cost? Zero? I’d sell it at whatever someone could afford, but if they can afford cigarettes or Starbucks, they can spare a few bucks. And if they’re broke but really want to read my work, hell, I’d give it away. I don’t need the money. I just need my ego stoked! I need satisfaction! It’s the new exciting feeling! And if someone wants to know me, the essence of who I am is in those tales. Maybe I just wanted some minor immortality.

After all, whatever the reason I was doing this collection, it wasn’t like I was submitting stories anywhere anymore.

Youth Revisited
Or was I?

Recently, an email arrived from a small-press anthology publisher whose mailing list I was on. I always looked at what theme she was reading for, but I never submitted. I’d moved on. I wasn’t even writing new short stories.

But she was seeking stories with a specific theme, and I happened to have a story that fit. I’d written it twenty years before and had submitted it only to a couple of places back then. I was including the story in my collection, so I’d recently polished it. It was about 4,000 words and she wanted 3,000, so I did the professional thing and queried her on it. With her blessing, I sent it.

A week later, her co-editor emailed to say he loved the story and wanted to include it, but it was too long; despite my proper query and subsequent invitation to send it, he said their 3,000-word limit was firm, and he wanted me to cut it down to that. He’d even suggest what could go, because he knew how hard it was to cut down your own work, and so forth.

The email was amusing because he loved the story yet seemed to think I was a young buck who had never been published. I responded to say that I appreciated his tentative acceptance, but that with 70+ published stories, I didn’t need a publication credit and wasn’t interested in cutting a quarter of the story out. I withdrew it from consideration.

You should indeed hack your own stories—eliminate everything you don’t need. If you have, then disagreements with editors often come down to subjective reasons. That editor might have thought I could remove a quarter of the story, but I didn’t. As a writer, at some point you must trust in your judgment and have pride in your work—and not sell out at any level to stay true to yourself.

Good fiction should move a story along and not ramble. But that doesn’t mean you should hack things that bring life and realism to your tale.

Lessons Learned
It wasn’t the first time I stood on principle regarding my writing. The first time, I took a lesson from Roger Zelazny.

In a Zelazny collection, he prefaced a story with a note about sending his 9,000-word story to a major magazine; they loved it, but wanted him to cut it to 4,500. “Crossing out every other word made it sound funny, so I didn’t,” Zelazny said. They published it anyway.

In 2002, I sent a 9,000-word story to Weird Tales; they loved it, but wanted me to cut it to 6,000. It was sad to pass up such a prestigious publication, but I was confident in my story—and that its length was right for the story I wanted to tell. There wasn’t a lot of chaff in that story; it was just too long for Weird Tales. So I channeled Zelazny: “Crossing out every third word makes it sound funny, so I can’t.” They did not publish it anyway.

That was a moment for me. I had turned down a big magazine because I believed more in my story than the need to be in that magazine, and it had been painful. In 2023, I’d basically done the same thing, but this time it was amusing. Rejecting their offer was somehow satisfying because I’d changed over the years. What was all-important in the 1990s no longer is. All that mattered then was getting stories published. Now I don’t care. Today, it’s just a vanity project of a three-volume collection. What happened?

Time happened. Thirty-five years ago, I wanted to be a famous writer. Twenty-five years ago, I broke in. Fifteen years ago, I began to bore of selling stories at the drop of a hat. Five years ago, I began focusing on novels. In some ways, I’m not the person I was last month, or last week, or yesterday—or who I was when I began writing this article.

Experience constantly changes us—in myriad tiny ways that slowly mold you into someone new. If you’re happy, then that’s okay. I’m happy with my writing successes, and I don’t need new stories published.

Well, maybe I do, but on my terms. I suppose that’s the moral here: Get to a point where you can trust in your work and stick to your guns. Don’t be afraid to be a little audacious. Maybe a lot audacious—even with perfect strangers.

Like this: Can I put you down for a set of that three-volume collection?

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.