A while back I posted that writing and publishing are wars of attrition. Keep writing and learning, and you will get better. Keep plugging away at your novel and one day you will finish it. Keep submitting stories to magazines and eventually you will get published. Keep writing and publishing books, and eventually you will earn a profit.

Overwhelm the enemy with slow and steady progress.

And today (well, technically July 19th), I got my first anthology publication. One of my short stories, Memories Upon the Emerald Sea, is in Wordfire Press’s anthology, Gilded Glass: Twisted Myths and Shattered Fairy Tales.

My story is appearing alongside a bunch of other talented authors, including veterans and award winners like Sherrilyn Kenyon, Alan Dean Foster, Jonathan Maberry, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Michaelbrent Collings.

I’ve submitted over a dozen short stories to three times as many different magazines since I started publishing. So far, this is the only professional sale I’ve made. The Secret of Milton Boska actually made it to the final round of Wordfire Press’s 2021 anthology, but ultimately it was eliminated.

And that’s okay.

Many of my fantasy short stories have gone into Tales from Another World. They might not have been quite right for the fantasy magazines I sent them to, but they worked perfectly for TFAW. They found a home eventually.

As for Memories Upon the Emerald Sea… You’ll just have to check out the anthology to read it! Or wait until Tales from Another World: Volume 6 or 7 in late 2022 or early 2023.

But really though, if you’re a fan of any of my dark fantasy or you like twisted fairy tales, definitely check out Gilded Glass. It’s got some doozies in there.

And if you’re a fellow author, writer, or creative… Keep at it. Success doesn’t come to those who wish for it. It comes to those who work for it.