I’m writing this from the Royal Court Theatre in London where, as a Writers’ Card member, I have free use of their writing space. While I don’t have a garden/yard of my own, my downstairs neighbours said yes to my request to keep potted plants in the gravel-filled space out front, and I recently had a salad of fresh lettuce I grew.
This weekend, I watched Brighton’s Pride parade, brought my books to a DJed Pride event to sell, and went to a cat cafe, where a furry little rascal named Fifi tried to steal my creamy drink.
Writing wise, I’ve been busy. I took part in two podcasts with The Good Book Life: Protecting Pride, which discussed the growing trend of removing Pride and LGBTQI+ displays from UK libraries and the importance of representation in the face of censorship, and Reading by the Swamp: Alternative Summer Reads, where we recommended unconventional favourites for the season.
I have a new story published in Mythaxis. “Rooted” features workplace burnout, a garden/forest Workaway, and an uncanny hostess. Talk about “getting back to your roots!” You can read it here, or listen to an audio version.
Illustration for my story “Rooted” in Mythaxis
I took part in Aggh! Zine’s zine-making workshop, where I made a playlist zine for my YA novel Chasing Harmony (themes: gifted kid burnout, bi angst, Canada in the 90s/00s, and lots and lots of music). You can see the zine below (so much fun to make!), and listen to the Spotify playlist for my book here.
But…
So often, there’s a “but.”
When Plans Change
Publishing is a changeable business, and it just so happens that my entire publication schedule has changed at once.
I had a book planned for release this year. My literary romance novella, the project that got me through lockdown, is now going to be out next year – fall 2027 – instead.
The anthology I’m editing has moved from a March 2027 release to a June 2027 release.
My other planned 2027 book will, most likely (hopefully), be a 2028 book.
I’m looking forward to launching these books on their revised timelines. And it feels like a big adjustment at a time when multiple changes have converged.
Other things that I was hoping for, planning for, this year didn’t end up happening at all. A theatre show didn’t happen. A festival didn’t happen. Some big personal plans, the type of thing I don’t write about in newsletters, also didn’t happen.
I’ve been sitting with my disappointment when plans fall through, and asking myself, “What can I do instead? What’s within my control?”
Often, we do our best, but outcomes are partly or wholly beyond our control.
We can’t necessarily turn a “no” into a “yes,” or a “later” into a “now.”
We can, however, to paraphrase a saying, look for a window when a door closes.
Collecting Rejections
Writers get a lot of rejections.
I first read about the idea of collecting these rejections in a Literary Hub article when it came out in 2016. Writer Kim Liao proposed the idea of collecting 100 rejections a year. If you aim to get rejected by that many magazines, fellowships, residencies, or whatever else, you’ll likely get a few acceptances along the way.
I didn’t end up actively counting rejections at the time, though I did start tracking my story submissions.
More recently, actor and content creator Gabriella Carr has gone viral for pursuing 1000 rejections. And Jia Jiang has written a book about rejection therapy (as he calls it), after challenging himself to face rejection for 100 days in a row by asking for unusual things. Beyond the literary world, rejection can be pursued as a confidence-building exercise or a way to increase personal resilience.
Since I started hearing more “nos” this year, I’ve created a spreadsheet. I list the things I’ve applied or asked for, when, and the result. Most of them are “nos.” But a few are “yeses.”
We can’t always control the answers we get, or the plans that change. But we can ask.
What have you asked for lately? What would you like to?
Happy 2026! I wrote a New Year story to share with you all, set in the world of my cozy fantasy novel (soon to be in the editing stage before submissions).
I also had a holiday story called “Forest Creatures” published online on Christmas Day. It’s not a spicy tale per se, but it shares a venue with several and I read it previously at a Kinky Storytelling event, so take that as you will when it comes to readership. “Join us for a Christmas walk through the forest in this enchanting sapphic winter tale by Melanie Bell.” Here it is!
And here’s my New Year story for you to enjoy.
New Year, New Ewe
It was New Year’s Eve. Tim wandered around Brighton alone. Through the Laines, around back alleys, walking blindly. By the time he realized that nothing around him looked familiar, he felt it was too late to get his bearings. The shops looked interesting. Might as well poke around.
Healthy Habits, read a sign over a bright blue door. A peek through the windows revealed the usual rows of vitamins and supplements, along with an odd mishmash of fitness equipment, food, and who knows what. A stupid, hopeful voice in his head piped up: Maybe something in here will help me be less of a failure. Half listening to it, he stepped inside.
An old-fashioned bell rang at his arrival. A shiny red bicycle greeted him. Maybe he’d get into cycling in the new year. Or maybe not. He eyed the dumbbells – he already had some at home, and used them intermittently. He shook his head at the green smoothies and fruit-and-nut energy balls in the fridge. He knew from experience that they tasted like grass. Kaley had loved those sorts of things. But Kaley had left him.
“New year, new you,” he mumbled under his breath. “As if anyone gets a ‘new you’.”
“What’s that, love?” An elderly woman approached him, wearing a name badge. She moved more spryly than he’d expect of someone her age – in fact, she practically floated. Adults can’t float, Tim reminded himself. Then he realized how stupid that thought was. Children couldn’t float either, even if he’d imagined he could while playing Superman.
“Nothing.” Tim’s cheeks colored. He hadn’t expected anyone to hear him.
“You wait right here,” said the grey-haired, round-cheeked woman, departing soundlessly. How? She must be into all sorts of crazy fitness things, if she ran this shop.
As Tim browsed a shelf of vitamins, undecided on whether he needed any, the woman reappeared, holding a leash attached to a large and fluffy…
Dog? That wasn’t a dog. It was round, wooly, and white mixed with dove grey. Its tail was short, its ears pointed. “Baaa,” it said.
“You have a pet sheep?!” exclaimed Tim in delight. “Or is it a shop sheep? I like the sound of that – shop sheep!”
“You said you wanted a new ewe,” the shopkeeper grinned, “and Eunice here is looking for a home.”
Or maybe it was Ewe-nice? She didn’t spell it out.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” said Tim as a chill crept down his spine. This situation was getting surreal.
“Do you have a garden?” the woman asked.
“Well… yes…” Tim had kept the house when Kaley left. He’d bought her half, leaving him with all the space and her with all the money. Now she was able to travel, like she’d always wanted. He saw her pictures on social media, of faraway cities and beaches, while he sat in the same old city by the same old beach.
“I married you because I was supposed to,” she’d told him at last. “Not because I ever wanted…”
“You never wanted to be here,” said Tim. She didn’t disagree.
“Then it’s all sorted,” the strange shopkeeper was saying in the present, and Tim had a terrifying feeling that he’d missed some important context while lost in his memories. “Here are her winter supplements.” He heaved a burlap bag at Tim, which he lifted tentatively, surprised to find it lighter than expected. Some sort of grain? He supposed she would also eat his…grass?
“And this is for her bedding.” She heaved a second sack his way.
This was madness. He didn’t want a sheep!
“Baaa,” said Eunice, her nose moving closer to the burlap bag. He pulled it out of the way.
“How much is she?” he asked.
“Forty-nine kilograms,” said the shopkeeper. “Very healthy.”
“No, I mean, how much does she cost?” That eerie feeling strengthened again. Tim’s skin was full of goosepimples. Had there been a person in front of him? Had they disappeared?
So Tim found himself walking home with two sacks over his shoulders and a sheep on a leash. Once outside the Healthy Habits shop, he recognized a nearby street and recovered his bearings. Eunice trotted obediently along after him. He supposed he would need to build her a fence so she didn’t run off. And did she need a barn or something? Well, he had some space in the garage…
As he strolled homeward, passersby approached to comment. “Is that your sheep?” “What’s her name?” “Can I pet her?” A pair of small children reached out to touch Eunice while their father watched nervously.
“So, Eunice,” said Tim once they arrived at his place, “I guess this is your new home. Why don’t I set up a place in the garage for you while I figure out if I need to build a fence in the yard or what.”
Kaley used to keep a work bench in the spot where Tim set down straw bedding. He put some grain in a bucket and filled a salad bowl with water. As Eunice ate and drank with the garage door safely closed behind her, Tim frantically searched online for information.
He called his friend Billy, who worked as a contractor, to put together the fence and shelter the internet said a sheep needed. “A shopkeeper gave you a what?” exclaimed Billy over the phone. He drove over as fast as he could. Eunice ran over to greet Billy as soon as he got out of the car, acting as if he had treats. He did.
“Hello, cutie.” Billy scratched behind Eunice’s ears. He looked up at Tim. “Are you sure you’re up for taking care of her?”
“I… suppose,” Tim grumbled.
“Well, new year, new ewe, innit?” Billy chuckled. He got to work on the fence.
Everybody loved Eunice. Tim was almost jealous.
On New Year’s Day, he did his usual video call with his parents. He thought of it as a duty, a depressing affair since Kaley’s departure without producing grandkids and his own persistent singleness, which bothered him more in the abstract sense – the feelings of failure, the hit to his status – than it did in the concrete, day-to-day sense of not having someone around.
This time, though, he had something to talk about. He turned his phone camera on the sheep.
“Isn’t she precious?” Tim’s parents explained. They were so distracted by her “fuzzy little ears” that they neglected to ask their usual probing questions.
Still, Tim let out a sigh of relief when the call was done. He turned to Eunice and patted her nose. For the first time in two years, he wasn’t alone for the new year.
That week, he had a date lined up with someone he’d matched with on an app. “I have great expectations for this one,” he proclaimed to Eunice as he filled her water bowl. “Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t.”
But when Fatima the accountant asked about his hobbies as they sat and sipped their coffee, Tim finally had something to say. He showed pictures of Eunice on his phone and got Fatima laughing when he shared the story of how she’d almost knocked him down as he brought her food. She even ordered a second coffee.
We may or may not be a fit, thought Tim at the end of the date, but she seemed happy to be there, in a way Kaley never did. Did I know how to recognize unhappiness when I saw it?
And there he was, thinking about his failure again. It had stayed out of focus for the whole date, when usually, when meeting women, that was all he could think about.
He rushed back home and checked on Eunice in her enclosure. That was his routine now, apart from work. Feed the sheep, water the sheep, check on the sheep. He had nightmares sometimes where something terrible happened to Eunice and it was his fault.
But now… had it?
She lay upside down on the grass, legs in the air. Tim hurried over. Her head was stretched out to the side. Maybe she was just sleeping? Did sheep sleep like that?
His phone told him a dire story: she may have rolled over, but sheep on their backs are stuck. They can’t get up by themselves; their stomach gets bloated, and they’ll die. How long had she been like this?
Tim had never rolled over a sheep before, nor imagined he’d have to. Nervously, he opened the fence and approached her. Eunice gave a pathetic bleat. Her belly looked puffy, her legs cartoonish.
Tim set his phone in the grass and tried to follow the diagram he’d found, placing his arms around Eunice’s shoulders and heaving her up. She was bulky and heavy. Sweat rolled down his back. But Eunice gave little resistance. After some awkward pulling and lugging, hands deep in her thick grey-white wool, he got the sheep right way up.
She wobbled at first, like a drunk. Her legs bowed. Tim worried there was something wrong with her, that he’d come home too late. But after a few staggering steps, she seemed back to normal.
Tim grabbed extra feed for her. “You could have died,” he said.
She was alright now. But what about tomorrow?
He checked on Eunice first thing in the morning and was relieved to see her standing upright. She ran toward him in greeting. “Baaa!”
“Baaa to you, too,” he said, scratching her chin. And wondering. And worrying. Had Billy been right? Was he not up to taking care of a sheep?
Did he even want to take care of a sheep?
There were so many steps he had to do that he hadn’t done yet. Registration. Veterinary care. Getting more food. Learning how to care for an animal from real live people, not his phone.
Eunice was loveable, but he hadn’t chosen her. He’d taken this sheep home in a sort of fever dream – perhaps because he was too polite to refuse.
Maybe that was how Kaley had felt about him.
But where else could Eunice go?
Every spare moment of that day, he looked for answers. He found a number of sanctuaries and rescues in the region, and began making phone calls. “I was given a sheep who needs a home,” he explained, “but I don’t think my garden is the right one for her.”
One sanctuary seemed especially welcoming and thorough. So Tim and Billy loaded Eunice in Billy’s truck and took a trip out to the countryside.
A black-and-white farmhouse sat surrounded by rolling green hills and tumbling fields where animals grazed. Horses nuzzled each other, cows chewed their cud, ducks milled about a pond, and a herd of sheep in many colors faced the road as their truck approached.
“Hello,” said a man in overalls and work boots as they approached. “I’m Michael, owner of the sanctuary.”
And he and Tim were shaking hands before Tim had realized he’d moved. Had he walked up, or had he floated?
“Let’s have a look at Eunice, shall we?”
Michael and Eunice took to each other right away, and the more Tim saw of the farm, the more he liked it. He knew the sheep would be safe and happy here, among a friendly herd.
Even if part of him would miss her.
“Do you take visitors?” he asked. “Or volunteers?”
So, to Billy’s amusement, Tim began spending every other Saturday at an animal sanctuary, tending to cows, chickens, and donkeys. He may not have had his own kids, but he looked after plenty – of the goat kind. He made new friends among the volunteers. And he always gave Eunice a fond scratch.
Then he drove home and rested, content in his own company.
I spent the last four days at the World Fantasy Convention, which took place this year (most conveniently) in my current home city of Brighton. It combined two events in one – an international fantasy convention and a British one. That means it came with two award ceremonies, including the British Fantasy Awards, where I acted as a juror for one of the categories.
Just a few of the stickers, art, zines, treats, and other swag I brought home
Shiny Things
If you like to collect things, I’d highly recommend attending a con. I brought home so many bookmarks, book art, zines, stickers, tote bags, sweets, and more. Just a few are shown above.
And the books! I brought home 11 free books, plus the 24 ebooks/magazines offered as free downloads to participants. One author handed me an entire trilogy. I also bought… let’s just say more than a few of the attending authors’ works. One advantage of living nearby was that I could bring books home in my bag every evening rather than having to fit them all in a suitcase.
The convention featured a display of beautiful fantasy art for sale, as well as a room full of booksellers, including some intriguing independent booksellers, authors, and small presses, and one night involved a massive author signing event.
Happy People
As much as a fantasy convention is a showcase of books and the worlds within them, above all, it’s a place to meet and connect with creators. It was great to see people I knew from Worldcon last year and to meet new people, too.
Events included panels, author readings, launches, guest of honor interviews, “meet the author” events, workshops, and social events such as karaoke and a funny role playing game. I found Ana Sun’s workshop on Writing a Community, Not a Lone Hero deeply engaging, and the panel on Feminism and Feminist Themes in Genre Fiction made me think about what kinds of representation I’d like to see more of.
I enjoyed attending several of the book launches and continuing to get to know the fantasy publishing landscape I’ve been exploring as an award judge. The Solaris launch stood out, with authors playing a game of choosing which one of their books best fit some fun questions (such as “Which book would you recommend to your best friend?” and “Which main character has the best fashion sense?”). I’m told that another launch involved a sing-along.
Speaking of sing-alongs, I had a fabulous time at the “Dungeons and Disorderly” role playing game, where a group of authors played characters and a scenario created by audience prompts written on slips of paper. It was like a big improv game. Some of us in the audience were called upon to act out opponents the characters encountered, so I, in my Halloween costume (I’d dressed up as Moiraine from the Wheel of Time series, which a lot of people interpreted as a princess costume – I got a lot of compliments on my dress that day), got to play a duck that sang a Disney song to activate a weapon. I sang a bit of “Let It Go” in front of everyone. It was all great fun.
My costume
The British Fantasy Awards took place on Saturday, and I was proud to watch the announcement for the Best Independent Press. I got a picture of Nick Wells, founder of the winning press, Flame Tree Publishing, giving his acceptance speech. I was the only juror in my category who could make it to the conference, so it felt special to be there.
I’ll say again, as I did last month, that all the submissions were excellent. It was an honor to play a part in recognizing their quality work, and I was very pleased to see some of the other presses and authors recognized elsewhere, including at the World Fantasy Awards the next day. A single panel of judges adjudicated that whole slate of awards, a task which took up much of the year. They gave an interesting talk on trends they noticed and the process they used. I appreciate the BFA approach of using different panels to judge each award, allowing for shared work and opportunities.
Founder/Publisher Nick Wells gives the acceptance speech for Flame Tree Press, winner of Best Independent Press in the British Fantasy Awards
One of my own SFF stories – some hopeful science fiction involving climate change and a work exchange between planets – was recently published in the NonBinary Review’s Solarpunk issue. I also have a story forthcoming in Mythaxis Magazine.
And if you’ve read this far, here’s some flash fiction to thank you for your attention!
Pick a Door
Once you’re twelve you get to choose your door.
If it had been up to me, Liam and I would’ve gone through the same one, but there are rules, you know. One child per door. Keep the populations stable. If some doors get too crowded, the council swap them out for different ones.
So I put on my nice blue suit with a marigold in the buttonhole and Dad led me to the entrance, stooped but proud.
Liam ran up and hugged me quick. “Bye, Amir. I’m going to pick the blue one.”
“Bye.” Be a man. Don’t cry.
I spun in a circle. A hundred doors, hanging down from the sky. Some hinted at warm or woodsy origins. I recognized the door through which Mom had entered our world, old and chipped. She’d liked it well enough here before she left.
Maybe I’d like it there, too.
As I stepped forward, heard it creak open and its Mac truck rush of energy pulled me through, I hoped she’d gone back in there instead of running through another one.
If you write both long and short fiction, you’ve probably experienced differences between these two lengths of storytelling. As I’ve worked on two books, each focused on fiction of a different length, I’ve been thinking about the contracts between these forms and how to choose the best length for a given project.
I had a short story collection, Dream Signs, published by Lost Fox Publishing in December. I also have a novel, Chasing Harmony, forthcoming this summer. The publisher, Read Furiously, is lovely to work with and has recently shared my author bio on their website.
Both long and short fiction are ways to tell a story. The scope and focus of the story can (some would say must) change depending on the length. And let’s not forget about intermediate length forms like novellas, which have elements of both. I’ve enjoyed writing in these forms, and my novella “The Cliffman” is published in both Hard for Hope to Flourish and Dream Signs.
If you have a story you want to tell, here are some things to consider when deciding if it would work best as a shorter or longer piece.
How big is the story?
The more complex the tale you want to write, the more easily it will lend itself to a longer form. If you have a sprawling world or several points of view in mind, for instance, a novel might be a better storytelling vehicle than a short story.
What pace works best for your story?
Sometimes I have a brief idea or concept that I want to explore and not much of a plot. Sometimes the plot I have in mind is a simple one that can play out over a few pages. In these cases, I keep the writing process brief with a short story. When I want room to sprawl out and develop a longer story, I start a novel, a form where I can describe minutiae and include digressions without wasting page space. The idea and characters have to be compelling enough for me to spend lots of time with them, but when they are, I want to spend that time with them.
Is this a new idea you want to test out?
Sometimes a short story is a good testing ground for an idea that you might want to experiment with but aren’t sure you want to invest in. You can try out new characters, settings, and concepts in short form to see if they work and get a sense of who or what they are.
Which length do you prefer?
If you’re pressed for time right now, maybe you’d rather work on a short story. But if you read mostly novels and love crafting cliffhangers, for instance, maybe you’d rather write a novel. Some writers find one length suits them much better than another. Others enjoy the challenge of both.
There are many questions you can ask yourself when deciding whether to write a short story or a novel. (Of course, you could write both, but you probably want to get started with one project.) The ones above are what I tend to think about. What about you? Do you have a length preference when writing fiction?
The first literary magazine I ever read submissions for was The Fiddlehead. Based out of the University of New Brunswick, it’s the oldest Canadian literary magazine in circulation. It’s a well respected mixture of poetry, fiction and reviews. I enjoyed reading through the slush pile, looking for gems and passing them on to a more senior editor when I found them. The magazine had a practice of sending feedback to everyone who submits, so when I decided that a submission wasn’t going to move forward, I wrote a little note to the author on a slip of paper. (Those were the days when we sent our writing to magazines via snail mail.)
I’ve had a couple of poems published in The Fiddlehead. I’ve also had some rejection letters from them for both poetry and fiction. This summer, I got another acceptance for a story I’ve been trying to place for 10 years.
In my creative writing Master’s program, I wrote a weird story about a middle-aged banker who goes on a cybersex chatroom. It’s set very obviously in the early 2010s, with allusions to politics of the time. There’s sexy talk about math. There are secret identities. I thought at first that “A Limit to Growth” might grow into a novel, but it reached a natural stopping point at short story length, with an ambiguous ending.
I knew that I’d written a good story. But for the next decade, I failed to place it. It wasn’t even one of those stories that got encouraging feedback: “This was good work but not for us” or “We encourage you to submit something else.” It got crickets.
The novel I wrote for my thesis, around the same time, had a similar result. More people liked it, but no one was looking for a bisexual coming-of-age story about a musical prodigy, with alternating timelines and a slower pace. “We only have a limited number of spots in our publishing program…”
Submitting your writing means getting rejected. Jane Yolen, legendary author from my childhood, tweets about her rejections all the time. You just have to keep baiting your hook until somebody bites.
I didn’t give up on “A Limit to Growth,” and I’m excited to see it find a home in The Fiddlehead’s 2021 summer fiction issue. I left my novel in a metaphorical drawer for a while, then resubmitted it to some new publishers this year and am delighted that it, too, has found a home. Chasing Harmony will be published by Read Furiously in 2022.
So, those are my stories from 10 years ago. It took time, persistence, and changes in the marketplace for them to reach an audience, but I knew that there was something good in both of them. I believed in them, so I kept trying. Next time I write something I like, I’ll remember how long it took to place these pieces and keep at it. If you’ve written something you believe in, I encourage you to do the same. Better late than never!
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