The Alchemist by HPL

I send thanks for all the good info, wishes for good hunting in your market search, and huge congratulations on your publication and translations! Sadly I'm not literate in Dutch, but please shout when the English translations get published. I would love to check them out! The discussion you linked was great. I didn't know about The Submission Grinder nor about Shunn's template and format guides, (which were recommended by @G.L. McDorman and @ktvician, respectively) those are both really helpful and encouraging! The turnaround times and pay stats on the 'Grinder really aid in focusing on particular publications and planning where to try next for acceptance. It's terrific to see y'all sharing such good recommendations (and a reminder that I need to read these forums more thoroughly ;) ! Wattpad definitely has it's limits, and, unfortunately, I think most publication markets will consider anything that's ever been published on Wattpad to be a "reprint," (which significantly reduces submission options afterward). It's been a great way for me to answer challenges, work through workbooks, and to easily share text with kind folks like you all in this forum, but it's probably not especially useful for actually trying to build a personal publication history. Have you checked out Reedsy at all? As far as I can tell, they've got a lot of great resources (including a very handy looking online book editor). I always worry about the subtleties of copyright (especially when using third-party tools based on online databases), but it still might be worth delving into. I heard a few interesting things about self-publishing on Scribl, so might consider trying that out. In truth, it seems to have almost all the limitations of Wattpad too, but it has at least the potential for sales. Also, their audiobook angle is intriguing. However, the Reedsy folks recommend going for width instead of depth if self-publishing, and often recommend Draft2Digital. Maybe I will roll up my sleeves and try to throw some stories into the 'Grinder, turn the crank, and see if anything fortuitous emerges. Judging by the stats, it could take many weeks just to get a rejection, then many more in hopes of getting a $20 acceptance. Still, it's pretty clear that the idea is to shop dozens of stories gradually across dozens of markets, and the fact that there is a free tool like this to help manage it (rather than my usual, if less sophisticated write-it-on-scrap-paper-then-pile-all-that-on-a-shelf method) gives me some hope that keeping organized long enough to build real momentum might actually be possible. Thanks again for the pointers, and congrats again on your publications!

@brouwpieter It took me a while to read your kind comment, but thank you very much for making it. I was introduced to dungeon crawls by Basic Dungeons and Dragons almost forty years ago, and first met Lovecraft in ADnD's Deities and Demigods just a few years later, so, even though I didn't set out to design a crawl for this story, it doesn't surprise me that one sneaked in. You're right that Lovecraft makes great use of them in a lot of his stories. The crawl through "The Nameless City" made a big impression on me when I first read it. To your original comment, I agree more with your interpretation than Joshi's. This felt to me like a supernatural story from the very beginning (just one of alchemy, rather than hexes), and the fact that it took the protagonist so long to cotton onto that fact didn't add any suspense, since we readers had long since solved the puzzle. In contrast, I've always appreciated Lovecraft's "very old man" villains (the one in "He" is particularly disturbing to me) and it's fascinating to think that Charles may have been the very first one. Thanks again for your kind words regarding my rework of the story. I may eventually figure out how paid-venue publishing works, but please feel free to check my Wattpad posts any time you like. Have you posted anything there yourself? I usually get hit at least once every few months with an undeniable writing challenge :)

A lot of small press magazines have presences on Twitter. Most have instructions on submissions on their websites. I've submitted short stories to a few, though never been published in a paying venue.

@ktvician It's the paying venues that have really diminished with the advent of the Internet even while the Internet has made non-paying small magazines much easier to manage and distribute.

Thanks for the referral. I just listened to the first season, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". It was really good: well-produced and acted, which I'd expect from BBC.

@ktvician I'm really glad you liked it. IMO the next two series hold up just as well, even though the tone changes a bit. The BBC really gets radio drama, and their production values are fantastic. A lot of folks (especially in the Call of Cthulhu RPG community) have suggested that Lovecraftian plots (which depend so much on heirloom letters, found journals, and dusty tomes lost in obscure shops) can't survive in a cell-phone-connected, wikipedia-documented age, but I think the writers, cast, and crew do a great job of injecting modernity into those podcasts. They also often deliver a nice, action-story pace alongside an occasional tasty slice of X-files, Serial, and maybe even a dash of Scooby-Doo ;)

@thomasiota I've listened to all three stories. Very well done. I like the way the stories lead into each other.

@ktvician Thank you very much for taking the time to check it out, and even more for the kind compliment. I did my best to capture HPL's tone. I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)

Excellent work, thanks for sharing! A great improvement, still in keeping with the style of the original. I didn't have as much of a problem with the narrator's age as Brandon, but the lack of agency and of action after breaking "the curse" are major issues that you have completely overcome. I think I would have been tempted to make the narrator slightly older than you did (maybe mid-40s) to give the prosperity more time to return, but that is a very minor point in the grand scheme of things.

@Karanthir I appreciate the generous words, thanks! I did struggle a fair amount with Antoine's age among drafts. Ultimately I decided to make him as young as possible and go for the "lust for life" greedily-victorious-noble angle, which let me easily switch into present tense with "the ancient towers begin to rise" etc. Still, I agree, it could work just as well, maybe even better, if he had been a decade older and looking back over his works in narcissistic self-congratulation. I felt that, to do that, I would have to explain either how he revitalized his family line or why he hadn't. I even roughed some of this out (maybe too much self-alchemy causes sterility?) but I had already wandered pretty far afield from the original story, so, ultimately cut that. Even though my posted version was much longer than the original, I probably cut 30% or more of it before I posted it, lol. Something about the original is an almost irresistible invitation to world-build...