1/3/19

The fourth quarter of 2018 is done, and below are my stats.

• Words written = 19,369
• Submissions = 34
• Rejections = 27
• Acceptances = 1
• Publications = 1
• Awards = 1

You can read this quarter’s published piece for free at Page & Spine Fiction Showcase. As my wife pointed out, the magazine’s name is slightly ironic given that it’s an e-zine and given further that my piece is a nonfiction essay.

Going back to my numbers for 4Q18, they aren’t bad, at least for me. That’s the most words I’ve ever written in a quarter, but I’ve had more submissions and rejections before (in the 40s for both). I’ve never won an award though. That award was third place in the nonfiction category of the Virginia Writers Club’s 2018 Golden Nib contest. I’ve only written two nonfiction pieces, and both have either been published or won an award. I’m going to have to think about what that means a little more.

Here are my stats for all of 2018.

• Words written = 60,269
• Submissions = 127
• Rejections = 107
• Acceptances = 3
• Publications = 2
• Awards = 1

Those 60,269 words break down as follows:

• 16 completed short stories
• 2 completed children’s picture book manuscripts
• 2 completed nonfiction essays
• 1 incomplete novella
• 1 incomplete short story (drafted but not edited)
• 1 incomplete novel

The 18,369 words I wrote in the novel during NaNoWriMo really helped the quarter and the year. I didn’t finish much else during the quarter, only one flash fiction story and one Drabble, an exactly one hundred word story. Both of those are already out making the submission rounds, so that’s something.

What should be my goals for the coming year? Last year I set a goal of 50,000 words. Based on the numbers above, I know I can achieve that plus 10,000 more. I’ll go with 60,000 words this year. Though I reached that in 2018, I’m a little concerned I won’t be as productive this year. My writing time decreased as 2018 progressed, except during November for NaNoWriMo, so I need to figure out how I can squeeze more writing time into the day.

I’d like to set a goal for the number of submissions and rejections, like Aeryn Rudel does over at Rejectomancy. I didn’t in 2018, mainly because I didn’t know it was a thing, but I reached his goals of 100 submissions and 100 rejections nonetheless. Now if only I could reach his number of acceptances (19)!

What the heck? Let’s go with 100 submissions and 100 rejections and see what I get at the end of 2019.

I know continuing to write the WIP novel will slow down both those numbers. No new stories reduces the pool that contributes to the submissions and rejections. I’m okay with that. I’d really like to finish the WIP in 2019, whether it turns out to be a novel or novella. I’d also like to finish the incomplete novella and short story and work on more children picture book manuscripts. None of those should be a problem.

Let me know in the comments what your writing goals are for 2019. A novel or two? A certain number of stories, submissions, or rejections? A few moments to yourself to figure out where that WIP needs to go?