2013 in Review
It’s time for the yearly review, and this time, it’s actually happening at the end of the year, rather than early into the next year!
My numbers for 2013:
New Stories: 3
Old Stories: 4
Submissions: 31
Rejections: 28 (+1)
Acceptances: 1
Stories out at the end of the year: 5
Breaking down the numbers: Like last year, I wrote three new stories. The one acceptance that I have this year came from one of those stories, “Fortissimo Possibile,” which was printed in Oomph.
Of the old stories that have been making the rounds, I pulled one of them from circulation early in 2013. In May, I took that story and turned it in to the novel that it hinted at. I started to work on the edits for that novel, but got sidetracked. So I’m hoping to do something more with it in 2014.
The other three old stories are still circulating, along with the other two new stories that I wrote this year. I’ve submitted some of them to markets that I’ve not dealt with before, some of which are new markets. I’m excited for the possibility that some of them might find homes with these new markets! The +1 on the rejections this year is for a story that I pulled after receiving no response from the market. I believe that market has since ceased publication.
In addition to the short stories, as I mentioned previously, I turned one short story into a novel in May. I also wrote a “novel” during November for NaNoWriMo. I put “novel” in quotes because it really isn’t finished. I did win at NaNo this year, completing my 50K words on November 28th (in advance of a big two day craft show at the end of November). But immediately after completing, I went back in and took out a big chunk, because I had decided to change the direction of the novel. So I wound up with about 35,000 words of usable text, not quite to the end of the story, and realizing that I probably only wrote about 1/3 of what this novel will ultimately be. We’ll see when that actually gets finished though.
We also continued publishing Mad Scientist Journal, and are working on taking it to new and interesting places in the coming year. Stay tuned for more details on that!
Looking forward, I’ve got a couple of short stories currently in the works, one of which I hope to finish the first draft of later this week. I’ve also got at least a couple of ideas on deck for new short stories. Assuming all goes well, I may end up with more completed stories next year. I’d also like to see more of my stories get published next year, as this year was slower than previous years in terms of acceptances. But that’s just a matter of continuing to improve my stories and my writing so that publishers will just leap at the opportunity to buy my stories. 🙂
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