10/4/18

The third quarter is in the books, and below are my stats.

Words written = 13,400

Submissions = 26

Rejections = 23

Acceptances = 0

Publications = 1

It was an interesting quarter. I spent July feverishly trying to finish a novella in time for Tor’s submission window, which closed mid-August, only to realize it wouldn’t happen. The novella had grown beyond my original intended ending, and there wasn’t time to develop a new proper ending. This project remains ongoing. I still haven’t figured out what that proper ending is yet.

August was bookended by a business trip the first week and vacation the last week, both of which offered opportunities to be productive, and I took them. During the business trip, I wrote a new children’s picture book manuscript, which I’m really excited about, added on to an in progress short story and started a flash fiction story. On vacation I finished that short story and flash fiction story, started a new flash fiction piece, and added 1000 words to the novella.

I was disappointed not to receive an acceptance this quarter. That broke my (admittedly short) streak of one acceptance a quarter this year. However, that was buoyed by the publication of my first accepted work in the Fall 2018 issue of Stinkwaves Magazine. Technically, that issue was not published until October 1, but I’m counting it because the issue was available for pre-order in September.

I’m comfortably on track to hit my 50,000 word goal by the end of the year. For the final quarter of 2018, in addition to the never ending cycle of submissions, I’d like to finish the novella and the new flash fiction piece. I’d also like to start and finish a new children’s picture book manuscript. In fact, my new goal is to do that every quarter. My list of ideas for children’s books isn’t getting any shorter.

The open question is what to do about NaNoWriMo. Do I attempt it? If so, with what? Do I try to hit the 50,000 words using a series of short stories, or do I finally work on my novel?

I doubt I’ll try either way. I still don’t have the time needed to devote to that challenge, so the pressure would just annoy me. I may devote the month to my novel anyway. I’m intrigued to see what progress I can make. A post last month on A Writers Path advocated writing 300-500 words a day for a year. Writing 300 words six days a week for 50 weeks comes to a respectable +90,000 words in a year, i.e. a novel. (Ironically, I’m excluding two weeks for vacation, which is one of my more productive times.) If I try that approach over the 30 days in November, I’ll at least net 9,000 words.

Let me know in the comments how productive your last three months were and how you plan to finish out the year. Do you plan on tackling NaNoWriMo?

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