2012 in Review
Well, we’re a couple of days into the new year, but I haven’t had time to sit down at a computer till now. We’ve spent the past week on a whirlwind Midwestern tour, not in the awesome rock star sort of way, but more in the “see all the people and do all the things!” sort of way.
So we’ll start with the numbers for 2012:
New Stories: 3
Old Stories: 5
Submissions: 28
Rejections: 25 (+1)
Acceptances: 3
Stories out at the end of the year: 4
Breaking down the numbers: I wrote three new stories in 2012. Two of those stories are still in search of good homes, while the third was accepted and published in 2012.
My rejections for the year include the four stories that were out at the end of 2011. Three of those came in as regular rejections, while the fourth was one that was submitted to an anthology that was ultimately cancelled. I also have four stories out at the end of this year, a couple of which should hopefully get responses very soon. My fingers are crossed that the delay in responses on these stories means they will be acceptances, but I know that the holidays likely mess up response times for a lot of magazines.
My three stories accepted were “The Devil’s Toybox,” “The Glorious Dead,” and “Bringing Light to the World.” The first and third of these were published in web-based formats, while “The Glorious Dead” should see print sometime this year.
For the record, “The Devil’s Toybox” was the new story that was published. It was 99 words long, and I wrote it very quickly, and then spent probably an hour polishing it up. Microfiction is harder than it looks!
In addition to the short stories, I also wrote a number of book reviews for Nevermet Press before they shut their doors. I began working as the assistant editor for Mad Scientist Journal> during the summer, and spent a considerable amount of time reading slush and copyediting stories. I’ve also been making the art assignments, now that we have a stable of artists who want to work for us. I also helped my husband, Jeremy, with the edits for his novella, “Kensei”, as a part of Cobalt City Rookies.
And, finally, I spent November working on a novel for NaNoWriMo. I didn’t finish this year, due to a computer failure a week before the end of the month, and I haven’t sat down and finished it since then either. At the moment, I’m still deciding if I want to devote my time and energy to novel writing, or if I prefer writing short stories. I’m torn on this, because I have the beginnings of a story that I think would work much better as a novel, and I’d like to try that out. But at the same time, novel writing can be a huge time suck, and it can be a very frustrating process as well. So I’m still feeling the waters here, and trying to decide what to do.
All in all, 2012 was a pretty good year for me, in terms of writing. I submitted one more story in 2012 than I did in either 2010 or 2011, and I had as many acceptances as I did in 2010 (one more than in 2011). So while it’s not dramatic growth, it is growth, and I’m happy with that!
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