Interview with S.A. McNaughton

In this post, we’ll hear from S.A. McNaughton, author of short stories and flash fiction from Ypsilanti, Michigan. McNaughton tells us how she manages her writing schedule, lists the many benefits of participating in writing contests, and tells us about the surprising social aspect of joining a community of writers.

You work a full-time administrative job while raising a preschooler at home. How do you arrange time for writing?

A very good question! It’s not easy, and it’s one of the reasons that I’ve found short fiction competitions to be a good fit for me. Many of them take place over weekends, and my very supportive husband is very good about giving me time to write.

For the first contest I participated in, my husband and son went out of town for the weekend so that I could spend the whole time on writing. Since then, I’ve gotten more efficient and can combine other weekend activities with brainstorming and writing. It still requires a lot of flexibility on the part of my family, though.

That includes my extended family — I once had a story in progress during our vacation with my in-laws, and my dad and sister are pretty used to getting drafts on Sunday evenings to proofread. I’m very grateful for the support that I have and I recognize that it’s a privilege many writing parents don’t have.

You’re a frequent participant of writing challenges such as Writing Battle and NYC Midnight. What has been the most surprising thing about engaging in writing competitions?

I’ve been so pleased to learn about and engage with the short fiction writing community. Beta reading for others and writing feedback in Writing Battle have helped me look at my own work with new eyes, and I feel like I’ve really bonded with a number of other writers. I always thought of writing as a solo endeavor, or one that I would engage in with friends, but I didn’t think of it as a way to meet new people.

Apart from registering for writing challenges, what strategies have you implemented to ensure that you can approach your writing with enthusiasm?

That’s a question I’ve had to ask myself, especially since I’ve been in a bit of a slump in the last month or so. It was the challenges that started the enthusiasm, and it’s the challenges that give me structure to work within.

However, I also think that since I started writing again last year, I’ve learned a lot more about what I like to write and what gives me that enthusiasm, and I’m a little bit better able to write without deadlines too. Humor and wordplay are fun for me, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of incorporating them into everything that I write, regardless of genre. 

What are you reading right now? Who are some of your all-time favourite authors?

Last year, I did three reading challenges in order to diversify my reading. This year I’ve been working on two year-long challenges and three more summer reading challenges. It is… too much. I don’t advise it. 

I always like to have a “cake” book and a “vegetables” book going. Cake books are fun to read, easy to pick up and put down, and I can go through them pretty quickly. These are usually genre fiction like romance, mystery, and historical fiction. Vegetable books are ones that I think will be good for me, like classics, non-fiction, and literary fiction.

My favorite authors include Christopher Brookmyre (a Scottish thriller author), Ian Rankin (a Scottish mystery author) and Jane Austen (probably doesn’t need a parenthetical, but for the record, she’s not Scottish). My first job was as a shelver in the Youth department of my local library, so I’ve always had a soft spot for children’s and YA fiction too, especially Madeleine L’Engle and L.M. Montgomery.

Readers can subscribe for updates about your writing journey from your website. What resources helped you with designing your website and what advice can you share with emerging writers about the importance of self-promotion?  

My site is built on the free version of WordPress, which has its limitations, but the price is right. I also use Canva to create graphics for the website and social media. As a GenX-Millennial cusper, I’ve been tinkering around with the Internet since about 1996, and I blogged through the Age of Blogs. When I have a new project, my instinct is often, “Let’s take to the Internet!”

My website started out as a way to share my writing with interested friends and family, but I also had the idea in the back of my mind that publishers want writers to have a digital footprint and followers. I try to make my posts accessible to those who know me personally and those who don’t.

Aspiring writers tend to feel lost in a world of rejection letters. How did it feel to begin sending your writing out to submission calls for publication? What helped propel you forward in order to persist in submitting your work?

Someone in the Writing Battle forums wrote about contests helping to generate stories, but then that any story that didn’t win a prize had to pull its weight and start earning in another way. I like that imagery and it’s stuck with me as I submit stories for publication. I think that without that “get the stories out there and put them to work” story to tell myself, I would still be too afraid to submit anything. 

I started submitting at the beginning of 2024 and I’m up to 23 submissions (20 rejections, 3 pending). That’s peanuts compared to some writers, but it’s 23 more than I submitted last year! This is another situation where having a community of writers around me, sharing their own rejections, helps me to not take it too personally, and to see it as a part of the process.

Do you have plans to explore other forms of writing outside of short fiction?

I’m a big fan of trivia, and as such, I feel I have a broad but shallow knowledge base. I also have ADHD and my brain craves variety. Short fiction hits both of those in a way that I’m not sure a novel would. I love writing one story then changing to something completely different next. 

I’ve considered doing some creative non-fiction, which I think would be fairly similar to the blogging that I did in the early 2000s.

I haven’t ruled out writing a novel someday. My sister currently has two three-novel series in progress, so I often think of her as the novelist and myself as the short story writer. But I have a few stories that I think should be expanded.

What can we expect to see from you in the near future? Any new developments?

Earlier this year, my story “Santa Claus and the Quantum Librarian” was shortlisted for the Quantum Shorts flash fiction contest sponsored by the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore. An anthology of finalists from the contest is due to be published in late 2024, which will be my first publication!

I think in the next year I’ll be a bit more selective with contests and try to focus more on setting and keeping my own deadlines.

More from S.A. McNaughton online:

Website: https://writermcnaughton.wordpress.com/

Social Media: X, Facebook, & Instagram

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