Stephen L. Thompson's Blog

 Last month, I gave thetip of Keep track of everything, in regards to the submission and publicationsof your stories.  I think that idea ofkeeping track of things stuck in my mind, and when I had a random memory of something,the two clicked together and I had a tip for this month.Many years ago, on theDiscovery Channel, or Science Channel, or some such channel, they would have

 As I said in My writing plans for 2026, instead of trying to write a story each month for my website, I’donly do one each quarter.  The story forthis quarter was “Keep Writing,” which I almost didn’t finish in time.  I started another story, but it turned out tobe too big for me, so I had to set it aside and then scramble to come up withsomething else.  But I did manage

 I’ve been submitting/self-publishingstories for just over twenty years.  Ithink at first, I just kept track of things in a notebook, but I eventuallydecided to make an Excel document to keep track of everything.  I had the story’s title, where I submittedit, when I submitted it, when I heard back, and what the result was.  Later, I started keeping track of the stories

I’m trying towrite more microfiction stories.  Forone, I can post them on Mastodon or Bluesky making them a nice way for peopleto find out about me (here is a page with all the ones I’ve published) and two,I’m slowly working on a collection of 1,001 microfiction stories, and it takessome time to write that many.  Last weekI came up with an idea dealing with the current state of

In 2025, my basicwriting plan was to post a story each month on my website, one each month onone of my blogs, and one each quarter on my Ko-fi page.  That works out to seven stories every threemonths.  Not all of these stories werenew, but still it turned out to be a lot. I ended up missing a few months from general writing burnout, as well asstress from my personal life as

 This quarter, I wrote “Same War, Different Tactics” and “The Next Problem” as part of my Monthly Stories.  Again, there were only two stories because Iwas burned out.  So next year I’m doingsomething different, which I’ll discuss more when I put up my 2026 WritingPlans post sometime in early January.  MyKo-fi post for this quarter was my story “Sign of the Times.” And on

My plan had beento wait until early December then start my Stranger Things rewatch doing anepisode or two each day so that I would get to the final episode just as itcame out.  But I ended up starting earlybecause I wasn’t feeling well and just needed to watch something.  I believe I was watching the end of Season 2when the first part of Season 5 came out. Since then, I’ve

Many years ago, I hadan idea and hammered out a story of maybe 200 words.  I don’t remember exactly how I felt about itat the time, but I’m sure I thought it was a very good little story.  I think part of why I wrote it was I neededmore stories for my first collection, A Man of Few Words, and it was aperfect one to include.  In the yearssince then, I’ll occasionally dig it out

 This quarter, I wrote “Too Stupid” and “Sacrifices Must Be Made” as part of my Monthly Stories.  The reason there’s only two stories, is Ididn’t post one in September.  I startedtwo or three stories, but didn’t finish any because of burnout, and probably afew other reasons.  But the most recentstory I started – which still doesn’t have a title – I’m 99.9% certain I’ll

A month or so ago,I was at work hating my job, when the phrase “A world not ruled by money,” cameto mind.  I started thinking about it,but had to stop because I was depressing myself.  But I had the great idea of an anthology ofstories based on the prompt of “A world not ruled by money.” That is a greatidea, but for somebody else to do it.  Idon’t have the patience,