January 2015 recap
By the numbers:
Stories out at the beginning of the month: 4
Acceptances received: 1
Rejections received: 4
Stories withdrawn: 0
Resubmissions: 5
New Submissions: 1
Stories out at the end of the month: 5
Getting things back on track in the new year! I got my first acceptance of the year, as well, on a story that I had submitted late in 2014. I’ll announce it more formally once it’s all squared away, but suffice it to say that I’m really pleased that this little story found a good home!
Also in January, I polished up one story that I’ve been circulating for a while (code name: girls), but that had a few things that could be fixed in it. I also finished writing a new short story (started in December, code name: mirror), and got it polished up so that it could go out for submission. This story was written for an anthology submission, but I feel like it’s a story that can go out to other markets as well if it’s not picked for the anthology. I like anthologies where the focus isn’t so narrow as to prevent that possibility. And finally, I finished the first draft of a longer story (verging on novella length, but not quite, code name: coil). This is one that I’ve been working on for some time, but I finally buckled down and got the ending on paper (as it were). I’m planning on working on the revisions for that story in February/March.
The other project I’ve been working on is worldbuilding for a novel that I really want to write. And because of that, I’ve rearranged my short story schedule a bit. I’m planning on finishing the revisions on the above mentioned story (coil), revising another story (also written in December, code name: play), and writing and revising a third story (another one that’s been hanging out in the in progress file for a while, code name: island) all by mid-March, and then I’m going to spend 7 or 8 weeks working on a fantasy novel. After it’s done, it’ll sit on the back burner for a while so I can get back to writing some other short stories.
February looks like it’s mainly going to be a month for revising and novel planning. I’ve got three other stories (code names: blind, skates, and murder) that have been in circulation that deserve to have a little time spent on making them better, so I’ll do that while I’m working on the three stories mentioned above. I’m also hoping to get the majority of my outline for the novel done in February, so I can spend the first couple of weeks of March (before I start writing on the 15th) getting all of the remaining details sorted.
(BTW, I’ve decided to start code naming my stories because sometimes I say something here and then forget what I was talking about. I don’t always like sharing my titles before the stories find homes. And, at the very least, some of them will have entertaining code names, I hope. Like “murder.” That’s fun.)
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