2007 vs. 2008
I know at least one person who doesn’t like the end-o-year statistics posts, so I’ve hidden mine behind this cut (also, the post ended up being rather long):
Tag: submissions
Lucky Thirteen?
I’ve currently got thirteen stories out at various markets. This is an all time high for me, so I’m pretty pleased. In case anybody is curious where the stories go, here’s a list of the markets I have stories at right now:
Abyss & Apex
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Coyote Wild
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Flash Fiction Online
Greatest Uncommon Denominator (GUD)
Hub
Interfictions II anthology
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
Les Bonnes Fees
Realms of Fantasy
Talebones
(This isn’t an all-inclusive list of markets I submit …
Cold Weather = Soup
Yesterday it was over 70 degrees outside. It was toasty warm. I wore a tank top. Today, at 3:30 in the afternoon, it was 32 degrees. I went out to run some errands and practically froze to death. (I wore a sweatshirt; in retrospect I should probably have also worn a jacket.) The overnight low tonight is 27. Texas weather is weird.
(While I was out running errands, I dropped a story in the mail, which gets me up to twelve submissions out at market. This is the most subs I’ve ever had out at the same time, so I’m …
And the 100th submission goes to…
Sent out my 100th submission this morning, to Strange Horizons. Since 100 is a nice round number, it seemed like a good time to put up some stats.
End-o-Year Statistics
2007 isn’t quite over yet, but I’ll be visiting family over the holidays, so the stats shouldn’t change much between now and then. Statistical summary of 2007:
Stories Written: 12
Novelette/Novellas written: 1
Novels Written: 1.25
Submissions: 66
Rejections: 56
Sales: 1
Stories currently out at market: 10
Stories Published*: 1
I feel like I did a bit better this year than the statistics suggest, in that I’ve had a lot of near misses. One of my stories was a (non-placing) finalist at Writers of the Future, and several stories have gotten past slush readers …
So close, and yet. . . .
Two recent rejections:
R#64 – 17-days from Strange Horizons
R#65 – 172-days from Cemetery Dance
The rejection from Cemetery Dance had a nice friendly note scribbled on the back side of their rejection form letter, saying that I’d come close and should try again soon.
And, speaking of trying again, two submissions:
Sub#75 – to Heliotrope (my 3rd to that market)
Sub#76 – to InterGalactic Medicine Show (my first to that market)
Another sub…and the realization that not all revisions are improvements
Sub#74 – to Weird Tales (my first sub there)
I’ve been struggling with this story, revising it and revising it, and I looked at the most recent version this morning and it was pretty terrible. Basically, in trying to fix this problem or that problem (over a series of drafts), I’d shredded the story into an incoherent mess. So instead of starting with the most recent version, I went backwards (not to the original draft, but to the first revision), and from there made a few changes, and suddenly the story worked.
* * *
This puts me at TEN …
Stories don’t sell unless you submit them
Sent out three submissions today:
Sub#71 – To ASIM (my second sub there)
Sub#72 – To Realms of Fantasy (my third sub there)
Sub#73 – To F&SF (my 12th sub there)
Also today — revised a story (which was one of the three I submitted) and sent a query letter. Hooray for productivity!
Seven Stories Out
Two more submissions:
Sub#69 – To Town Drunk (my second submission there)
Sub#70 – To Abyss and Apex (my first submission there)
and
Rejection#61 – 22-days to a personal rejection from Nature Magazine’s Futures.
So close, and yet…
Rejection #60 – 111-days from Noctem Aeternus. The story got past the first round reader, and the final rejection was positive, with encouragement to send another story in the future.
And then, to keep my numbers up:
Submission #68 – to Chizine
So I still have 6 stories out, at: Cemetery Dance, Writers of the Future, Nature Magazine, Coyote Wild, Strange Horizons, and Chizine.
