Progress Report July/August 2025

Besides the regular flash fictions and plotting out a few things (including a poem!) my main progress this period has been in sending off just-written and existing stories to various markets. I’ve been following Ray Bradbury’s dictum about sending stories off to the least likely market. I’ve done that a couple of times firing off six in one evening a while back (with no luck!) and I just fired off four stories. That after looking for a market for a mystery story I had sent to an online magazine that went belly-up. Fired off two more and got a rejection for one of those stories. That’s progress too.

Did a little planning for a Christmassy thing that may be done in a year or so.

The big news on the progress front is my (as Mike Mayak) story “Incorporation Of Danny Zero” was finally published in LiveRealPress’ anthology “Five Seconds Of Power.” (Publication counts!)

Speaking of rejections, I found that one of the longer stories I sent to an anthology a year or so ago didn’t get in. The book was published in June without my story (Called “Wayfaring Stranger”), so I sent that story off. That’s the way it goes. But when I drive past the small Western Kansas towns on Highway 54 that inspired locations in the story sometimes I think about it and I smile. Especially since it’s back on the market!

That’s about it for now!