Celebrating Failure

There’s a corkboard hanging from the door to my living room in Kansas. It’s full of doodles, stickers made by friends, lists of the books I’ve read and types of pasta eaten in 2025. This is the paper that gets used the most, though:

This is where I document my writing for the year. Every pencil doodle represents a story I’ve finished—that is, drafted and revised to a point at which I feel it’s ready to submit for publication. Each doodle’s size roughly corresponds to the story’s length, from three under-500-words micro stories to a novella. I’m not much of an artist, admittedly, although elaborate stick figures can take you a long way as an elementary school teacher. Still, it feels good to see the page fill up with those accomplishments, and finishing a story is an accomplishment even if it doesn’t end up getting sold. (At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.)

All told, I’ve finished 14 stories in 2025: one novella, eight short stories, two flash, and three micro, representing genres including sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and Weird West. I feel pretty confident that these stories are better than the ones I finished last year or the year before, and I’m hopeful I’ll find a home for them next year. I mean, just look at those doodles! Robot pirates! Celestial snails! Hoop snakes! Cursed honey! Radio towers on the moon! Buy these damn stories already, somebody!

The colored-ink text corresponds to stories I sold in 2025. (You can find more about these stories and even give them a read here.) Two of those were written this year: “Bubbe Hates You” (brick on a mantel) and “The New Sound” (scratchy-looking eighth notes hovering near pierced ears). Four were written in 2024, one in 2023, and one forthcoming story called “The Visitor” that I wrote way back at the end of 2022—look for that next month in The Future Fire.

The tally marks in the bottom-right were something new for this year. Recently I read a passing mention to an author trying to rack up 100 rejections in a year. I figured that would be a good motivator for me, so I gave it a shot. I guess I vastly underestimated my capacity for rejection, because as of December 9th I’ve tallied 181 rejections. That works out to roughly one rejection every two days. That’s, uh…that’s a lot of rejection! Which is good, that’s what I’m trying for, although sometimes it does just feel like getting rejected (i.e., bad).

Without letting myself get too maudlin: 2025 has been a hard year. I struggle with imposter syndrome, and sometimes let myself get sucked into despair about whether this writing is actually worth anything. This paper helps, at least most of the time. It’s good to be able to see that, no matter how many rejections come in, I’ve got things to celebrate, and I have a lot to be proud of this year.

Incredibly, the year’s still not over yet. Before December’s out I anticipate adding one or two more pencil doodles, approaching 200 rejections, and who knows, maybe one more story sale. Keep writing, keep celebrating. To quote a story nobody’s seen yet: Stay alive, stay free. Let’s see how far we can push next year’s paper.