A quiet forthcoming

Nearly 18 months ago, I wrote quite happily about about a hefty forthcoming. At the time, I had hit a wonderful cadence—I was writing new pieces of flash weekly as part of SmokeLong Fitness (I truly do recommend it!), and they were getting near-immediate critique from peers, which inspired me to edit and submit with a confidence I hadn't felt since 2014.

Which, with some luck in the submission grinder, meant a persistent list of forthcomings.

All those stories have since been published. I'm proud of each, thankful to the editors who accepted and championed them. Astonished every time someone read and responded to any of them. They were absolutely fruitless for my “career,” but they were the best art I could make when I felt inspired to make them, and they connected me to other writers I've since come to admire and take inspiration from.

Community over career.

Or, to put it another way: I still write entirely for myself, not for some perceived audience. Particularly not as an attempt at commercial success.

Now, thing have swung back to quite the opposite and I only have a single story forthcoming—a piece of flash fiction in Passages North. I don't mention this as some tragic fall from some semblance of success—I've admired this journal for nearly 15 years, and seeing my name among dozens of incredible contributors was a blast. Absolutely cannot wait to hold the issue in my hands.

I write about this quiet era of forthcoming because I've learned to be comfortable with it. I already given myself a multi-year lull in publishing, and when I was ready to come back into that space, my work was no less accepted and read than it had been before. The community I'd found all the way back in the mid-2010s persisted, and since this “hefty forthcoming”is out in the world, it's gotten a bit bigger. Knowing this, the quiet becomes a much more comfortable space.

For now, knowing how my brain operates and knowing the reasons why I write fiction at all, I'm okay with the quiet.

Quiet might kill careers, but not community.

Certainly not the art.