A short story per week challenge with Nina Kiriki Hoffman was what got me moving finally from being a part-time, really-want-to-do-it writer to a full time professional writer. We bet each other the cost of dinner that we would write and mail to an editor a new short story every week. Since many of you know Nina’s wonderful work, you know that neither one of us missed much. And we pushed the challenge for almost three years until we were selling regularly.

In essence, what we did was follow Heinlein’s Rules with the challenge.

Lately I have gotten three questions about this challenge, so I figured it was time to talk about it here a little more.

When Kris and I talk to beginning writers, either at a conference, or back when we were doing what people called “The Kris and Dean Show,” we told the listeners that there was a “Secret” to being a published fiction writer, and we had never seen it miss (with one exception of one writer who just wrote the same story over and over and never worked to get better).

The “Secret” is simply this:

1) Write one short story per week.

2) That week mail that short story to the top paying market you can find.

3) Then repeat the following week.

4) When the story comes back with a rejection, send it to the second best market without looking at the story again. Keep all the stories in the mail.

5) Continue weekly for one year. At the end of the year, chances are you will have a bunch of rejections, but no sales if you are sending your stories up high. But keep working on your craft, your skills, working to make every story better. And keep all the early ones in the mail without looking at them.

6) Start a second year, and by the time the second year is finished, you will be selling short fiction to professional magazines.

That’s the Secret. Very simple, very hard to do, as hard as Heinlein’s Rules are to follow.

Okay, to question number one. “How can I ever write a short story per week with my day job and family?”

I was married when I started the challenge with Nina. I had three jobs, one of which was running my own bookstore. I drove school bus in the morning and was a bartender at night. Yeah, I had the time. Not.

But let me say this. I WANTED to be a writer, and was damn tired of just talking about it and doing nothing. So I made decisions, I carved out the time, I wrote any time and any place I could. And at the same time, I was teaching myself to type and spell and all that stuff, since I had almost finished three years of law school and could do none of that. Stunning but true. So my learning curve was steep and needed to happen fast. I did not quit any job, just carved out the time.

Bottom line, if you can’t carve out the time, you don’t really want to be a writer. Blunt, harsh, but all writers did it early in careers. You can too if you really want to. If you can’t find the time, find something else to do, you will never become a writer.

And if you can’t find the money or the time to make writer’s conferences and other places to learn from advanced writers, find another thing to do. You have to learn as well as write.

If you don’t own a dozen how-to-write books, you have a bad attitude, find another thing to do with your free time, since you don’t know how to learn.

Yup, blunt it is tonight. <g>

Second Question (combined with a third that gets answered in this answer): “With so many stories out there, don’t you run out of good markets?”

Uhhh, no. If you think you do, then you are not really learning marketing very fast. This challenge ramps up that marketing learning very quickly. I sold one story after 34 rejections, and I still got 10 cents per word for it. In 1985. Yes, it was a horror/sf story.

Here’s the problem I hear all the time. “I wrote a sf story and there are only three/five/seven good markets for it.” What that tells me is that the writer isn’t respecting his or her own work. That simple. The writer is not starting high enough in the markets, or not looking for the hundreds of great short fiction markets out there, let alone tracking all the new ones that pop up all the time.

How do you know what to look for in a market? Simple. Top circulation first. Second top money. Third top help or visibility with career.

New Yorker has all three, of course. Any of the big slicks do. Learn how to research markets, find them, make lists, keep the lists current, and don’t be afraid to fire high. Worst they can do is send you a rejection. No big deal.

And on the topic of rejection, NEVER track how long a magazine takes to reject. Who the hell cares. Always send a manuscript to a magazine with the intent of selling it. Duh. And if a magazine doesn’t buy it, it is their loss. You just mail it to the next one, expecting them to buy it.

So, that’s the secret to becoming a published fiction writer. One short story per week, mailed to a top market, kept in the mail. I had around 70 different stories in the mail when I started retiring stories by SELLING them. <g>

Follow Heinlein’s Rules every week. His rules, to remind you all are simple, with me adding in the challenge “Secret” parts.

1) You must write. (Every chance you get, all the time.)

2) You must finish what you write. (Every week.)

3) You must not rewrite unless to editorial demand. (Saves a ton of time and was the true thing I learned that helped me break through to selling.)

4) You must mail your story to an editor who will pay you money. (Start at the very top, respect your own work.)

5) You must keep it in the mail until someone buys it. (See rule #3, do not look at the story when it comes back, just put it back in the mail to another editor.)

Heinlein’s Rules. The “Secret.” He wrote those in the 1940’s. Nina and I used them for our challenge in 1982. They work today just as well.

Good luck. Have fun. It’s a great life, being a professional writer. You make the time, mail your work, you can get to this life as well. Hell, if I could do it, any of you can do it.

Cheers

Dean

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