Attending the Clarion Workshop in San Diego (for reasons both good and bad) wasn’t anything like I imagined. But I’m glad I went. For the first time in my life, I had people who I seriously respect as writers (both teachers and fellow students) tell me, without bullshit, that I’m actually, maybe, good at what I do.

Before Clarion, I’d known too many writers with hyperinflated self-regard to take my own writing seriously. I’m talking about writers who can barely string three sentences together talking about how they’re going to find an agent for their next novel, etc. etc. I had this insecurity that, deep down, I was no different from them. That it was foolish to take writing seriously.

I still feel that way. And I probably always well. But for a year, at least, I’m going to try and believe. That means I plan to take writing very, very seriously for the year ahead. I’m going to run what I’ve decided to call “The Publishing Gauntlet.”

Which is really just a romantic way of saying that, for the next year (September 1, 2026 - August 31, 2027), I’m going to write a lot, read a lot, study a lot, and (this is important) submit a lot.

The goals:

• Write 4 hours a day, 6 days a week
• Finish, on average, 3000 words of submittable writing a week (or about 170 words per hour, 24 hours a week)
• Submit 25 times a month, or 300 times in a year. (If Ai Jiang can submit 800 times in a year, I think I can manage less than half that number.)
• Read at least 100 pages a day, 6 days a week
• Submit stories for critique every month, and regularly attend my local critique group(s) in Japan.

These are actually less aggressive goals than I originally intended. But I’ve had enough experience setting overly ambitious goals and crashing out in the past, so I’ve tried to make things more manageable for myself.

It’s also realistic in the sense that others have done it. Cat Rambo kept Clarion pace for a full year after she graduated. Ai Jiang submitted like 600+ times her first year and then nearly 800 times her second year. Ray Bradbury was the OG of writing short story a week.

Obviously this is a huge time commitment, and I’ll have to do less freelancing/money-earning stuff that I have in previous years. But I figure it’s a no different from taking 1-2 years off to do a MFA.

That’s all for now. I’ve mostly written this up to keep myself accountable. The plan is to have monthly updates where I report back on submissions, word count, pages read, and so on.