A few questions about associated content

If you submitted for upfront, I doubt it'll get approved at all. You might as well have published it as "paid only" , which is automatic (as long as you have already at least 3 published articles). Anyways approval can take up to two weeks. Submitting for Helium is a possibility. True, stories won't get you any of the special bonuses, nor will they help or hurt your writing stars, but at least it's automatic and there's always shared revenue. Some people claim Triond is better for creative writing, but from my personal experience it isn't (but then again I never wrote stories, only poems and education-related opinion pieces)