I just wrote two short stories — after not writing any for over a decade.

My two new short stories are amazing. At least, I think so. (I may be biased.)

But, here’s the thing… what do I do with them now?

For the past decade, I’ve been focusing on my Hart & Cole novel series, which takes a LOT out of me, so my short-story fuse tapered out.

I used to write a lot of them while I was doing my undergraduate degree and I belonged to (and at one point presided over) my university’s Writers’ Guild.

Guild was a place to bring them, to discuss them, to get feedback, to tweak them, and the like. Every year we also published an Anthology. So there was an audience, and an eventual route of publication if so desired.

But now that I’ve written new stories, I have no idea what to do with them.

Firstly, do I even want to “sell” them? Because, well… they’re loosely inspired by my experiences of early parenting during a pandemic.

I’m pretty sure my partner would be alarmed if he read them, but as I’ve said before, fortunately he’s not a reader so the likelihood of this is slim to none.

As a writer, we often pull some tiny fragment from personal experience and then embellish to turn it into something fictional, so I took some leeway with that for my short stories.

While they’re somewhat personal to me, they are fiction and will amuse and entertain readers.

So… right, if I do decide I’m comfortable with putting them out there, where do I begin?

What do you do, with a random story?

Though I think they’re amazing, I also don’t really think they’re competition-worthy, as I’d hate to adjust them in even the slightest way to fit into any competition’s guidelines.

I can just publish them, of course… but I’d need to flesh out a full collection, to be able to cobble something together for purposes of a sale.

And though they can stand on their own if I release them individually on one of the modern “bite-sized” platforms, I’d really like to create a whole thematic collection so they can be read as a group rather than on their own.

That means I need to write several more, say anywhere from 3-8 more, so I can call this “Pandemic Perusings” a collection.

…While those two stories linger, already written… hanging on, unseen. Until the muse strikes for their compatriots to come along for the ride.

It’s like hanging on to an amazing secret, with no knowledge of when you can tell the world.

As writers, we are all secret-keepers of something amazing. And as short story writers, we really are the best secret-keepers. I also have novels burning a hole in my soul, because I know what’ll happen and can’t just tell everyone — I have to F**KING write the damn novel!

But back to my short stories…

Deciding the path for your big book babies is one thing… but it’s quite another for your mini-babies!

Yeah, I know that having stories is the LAST thing a writer should complain about, but I’m in a quandary at the moment — not having the wherewithal to create a collection, while also not wanting to do my amazing stories a disservice by rushing them out there with little context, nor do I want to hold them back when they deserve to meet the world.

In a nutshell: FM(Writer)L.