History That Never Was

By the numbers:
Stories out at the beginning of the month: 177
Acceptances received: 3
Rejections received: 71
Stories withdrawn: 0 (+2)
Resubmissions: 72
New Submissions: 2
Stories out at the end of the month: 169

December was theoretically back to normal, though I was still juggling a lot of crochet and craft fairs. But also, a lot of markets get very quiet in December, so my number of rejections is pretty low this month. The +2 under withdrawn was from two markets that closed in December and returned the stories they had in their slush piles. But I got three acceptances as well! I’ve signed two of the contracts for those acceptances, so I can announce that my poem, “Motes and Morsels,” will appear in the January issue of Apparition Lit, and my flash fiction piece, “Senchado in Microgravity,” will appear in the April issue of Utopia Science Fiction.

I only finished two new pieces this month, a flash piece and a poem. I worked on ghost a little, realized the deadline for that was farther out than originally calculated, and decided to work on a different sub call instead. So that’s chugging along, slowly but surely. But I got my outline for the middle grade book done, and I’ve started working on revisions to briar–there are a few big picture things that need to be filled out, and otherwise it’s mostly minor tweaks.

For my January 2020 planning, here’s what’s on tap:

• Finish the revisions to briar and start prepping my agent submission things (query letter and synopsis)
• Start writing beagle (most of it will be written in January)
• Three flash pieces for a contest
• Finish writing “space moms”
• Finish writing “wolf”
• Start planning “hostile AI”
• One or two book reviews

Whee, busy month!

~

And now, here’s my 2019 recap:

My numbers for 2019:
Stories out at the end of 2018: 51
New Stories Written: 106 (26 short and flash pieces, 1 novella, 79 poems)
Old Stories Making the Rounds: 74
Total Submissions: 998
Total Rejections: 771 (+39)
Total Acceptances: 32 (+5) (-2)
Stories out at the end of 2019: 169

My submissions in 2019 skyrocketed. This is largely thanks to me writing a LOT of poetry (most of what I wrote in 2019 was poetry), and the simultaneous and multiple submission nature of poetry markets. But I’ve also had 180 pieces total going out on submission this year, which means a lot more opportunities for submissions.

Unsurprisingly, as my submissions skyrocket, so too do my rejections (the parenthetical number after rejections is for returned and withdrawn pieces, as well as for the markets that closed). But my acceptances are way up as well! Five stories that I submitted in 2018, but didn’t receive responses until 2019 were acceptances, and thirty-two other pieces were accepted as well! Unfortunately, two of the markets that accepted pieces from me subsequently folded, so those two stories came back to me without being published … but that just means they can go back out to markets as new stories, not reprints!

Of the thirty-two acceptances, that was fourteen poems and eighteen short/flash stories. Three of the stories and four of the poems sold at professional rates (6 cents a word at the beginning of the year, up to 8 cents a word after September).

I also reprinted the first two books of my Brass and Glass series under the DefCon One Publishing mantle after Razorgirl Press closed. I also published the final Brass and Glass book this year, completing the trilogy. And I published a collection of my short stories, Denizens of Distant Realms.

Reviewing my 2019 goals:

• 43 completed stories/poems and 34 others at least started

Success! And then some!

• 3 new novels

I finished writing briar and the Lady Huntsman novel. I didn’t write the second Marsh Sisters novel, but that’s on tap for 2020.

• edit 2 novels

I’ve edited Wasteland, which is now a novella, and is currently circulating to novella markets. I’ve started working on the briar edits, but that won’t be done for about another month.

• 17 book reviews

Success, plus one extra (thanks to some novellas in the mix).

• editing for MSJ and our anthology

Yep, the usual. This one comes off of the list for the future, though, because we’re closing MSJ and not doing a 2020 anthology.

 

Tags: 2019 recap, december, recap

This entry was posted by dawn.vogel on Tuesday, December 31st, 2019 at 6:00 am and is filed under Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.