Tag Archives: published

4Q21 Update and 2022 Goals

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It’s time to see how I closed out 2021 and then check in on how I did for the entire year. I also failed to provide my annual NaNoWriMo recap last month, so I’m tossing that in here too.

  • Words written = 16,100
  • Submissions = 24
  • Rejections = 17
  • Acceptances = 0
  • Shortlists = 0
  • Publications = 0
  • Rewrites = 0
  • Withdrawals = 0

The amount written was significantly higher during the fourth quarter, which has been typical for me the last several years thanks to the NaNoWriMo bump. The submissions were only a couple off my usual of 25-30 during a quarter. Rejections matched that of 1Q. Based on my numbers last year, editors plow through submissions during 2Q and 3Q but took it easy the other two quarters. Most disappointing was the lack of an acceptance during the fourth quarter. That torpedoed my goal of at least one acceptance a quarter.

The bulk of the quarter’s writing (about 15k) went to the middle grade novel I started for NaNoWriMo. It’s a sequel to the one I wrote during last year’s challenge. Unlike last year, I didn’t finish; and I still haven’t finished. December came, and all those things I had put off in November to write came home to roost. I did manage to crank out three flash (or shorter) pieces, two of which in the last week of December while on vacation. Even so, my vacation wasn’t as productive as usual. Something else to work on in the new year.

So how do the numbers for all of 2021 look?

  • Words written = 24,725
  • Submissions = 108
  • Rejections = 97
  • Acceptances = 3
  • Shortlists = 1
  • Publications = 3
  • Rewrites = 1
  • Withdrawals = 1

The numbers don’t lie. My volume of writing was pitiful. At least I kept up with submissions, and once again cracked the 100 mark. I came close to that mark with rejections as well, but I have less control over that number. Three acceptances/publications isn’t terrible for me, but every writer wants more.

I don’t plan to make many adjustments as far as my 2022 goals. I’d like to hit 100 submissions again. I already submitted one yesterday. 99 to go. On the flip side, I already received my first rejection of 2022. I’d also like to average one acceptance a quarter. Acceptance droughts are never pleasant.

As for words written, that’s a tough one. My total has decreased every year since a high in 2018 (my first full year of writing). I’m going for it and setting a 40,000 word goal. One of my three volunteer positions ends this month, so I’m hoping that will free up a little time. Now if only the day job would cooperate.

By way of specific projects, I intend to finish the WIP started during this year’s NaNoWriMo, as well as a short story I’ve been co-writing with a friend that took the back burner last year. I’d also like to complete another pass through my first middle grade novel and maybe get that professionally edited before starting the whole querying process. And, of course, fire out various short stories. Fresh stories always means more submissions.

How productive was your fourth quarter and 2021? What writing goals have you set for 2022? Let me know in the comments.

Reprints, the Gift that Keeps on Giving

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When I first started writing – all of four years ago – I didn’t give much thought to reprints. I didn’t even know what a reprint was. I should have though. I own a bunch. Every anthology of classic science fiction stories I’ve bought through the years contains nothing but reprints. I had no idea at the time, but all those stories had appeared previously, likely in the pulp magazines during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. (As an aside, I’m currently reading Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee; so this era is very much on my mind.)

As a novice short story writer, acceptances still don’t come all that often. I’m sitting at a baker’s dozen at the moment. When a publisher accepts a story, I’m elated. I promote the release. And I move on, primarily focusing on writing new material and continuing to submit my other stories that still need a home.

Maybe I should rethink that after my most recent acceptance. The good folks at Metastellar: Speculative Fiction and Beyond accepted my reprint “Cramping Your Style” for publication on August 18. For those keeping county, I’ve submitted a total of two reprints one time each; and both have been accepted. That means I’m batting 1.000 on reprint submissions. Gotta like that average.

“Cramping Your Style” is a middle grade soccer story with a speculative twist. If you want to read it for free, come back on the 18th. I’ll have a link to the story on my Publications page. And give some love to MetaStellar on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mag_meta, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MetaStellarMagazine, and on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MetaStellar.

Apparently, I’m a Horror Author

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I’m not sure when it happened, but I write horror now. Two of the last three stories I’ve sold have been solidly in the horror genre. The most recent, “Camping with the Carnival,” was just released today in Night Terror’s Vol. 14. Check it out in eBook, print, or Kindle Unlimited. An eAudio version will be out soon.

To give you a little background, my family went COVID-camping with my sister and brother-in-law last autumn. They had been on their own weeks long camping vacation (what better way to have a social distant vacation), and we met them for the weekend at their last stop. That night, my sister described some of the stranger people they’d encountered at their campsites. I immediately thought those people would make fantastic characters in a horror story. And they did.

I’ve sold to this market before. My story “Shadow” made it into Night Terror’s Vol. 6. The odd part is my sister also inspired that story. I wonder what it is about her and horror stories.

Below is a little taste of “Camping with the Carnival.” I hope it wets your appetite for me.

***

A dark stain blanketed the tent floor. An equally dark trail ran over the entry lip, continuing through the campsite and out onto the road. Something about the ichor smelled familiar–like the blood of its usual prey–but not quite the same. This caught the intruder’s attention. It ducked inside, shaking the entire tent in the process and uprooting several of the stakes securing it to the ground. It paid no attention to the stains adorning the remaining tent walls like a gruesome Rorschach test. Licking its lips to remove the last of the sample it had tried, the figure turned back to the slick trail, following it toward the campground’s communal firepit.

2020 Update and 2021 Goals

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Last time, I caught up on my 4Q20 results. Now, let’s dive into how I did for all of 2020.

  • Words written = 34,027
  • Submissions = 91
  • Rejections = 82
  • Acceptances = 5
  • Holds = 1
  • Publications = 4
  • Awards = 0
  • Withdrawals = 0

I also had a couple rewrite requests, one of which also was the lone “hold for further consideration,” and both of which turned into two of those five acceptances.

Let’s be honest; that first number isn’t great. That’s the second year in a row my total words written has decreased, setting a new low again in 2020 by about 3000 words.

Both the number of submissions and rejections were down as well when compared to prior years. The number of rejections were particularly low. I noted several markets were slower in 2020 reviewing submissions. Hey, those editors were living through a pandemic too, with all the issues that came with it. On the brighter side, I set highs in acceptances and publications. Can’t complain about that. And one of those acceptances should be published this year after a COVID-delay at the publisher.

How do those results compare to the goals set in January? I didn’t reach 50,000 words (again) and didn’t reach 100 submissions (for the first time). I did average at least one acceptance a quarter plus one! I would gladly trade fewer submissions for more acceptances.

Now for the hard part, what goals to set for 2021. I’m going with a lower 30,000 word goal. I want to focus on editing, at least at the start of the year. I have that middle grade book and several stories to go through from NaNoWriMo. Coincidentally, my fellow Northern Virginia Writers Club member, Darius Jones, who blogs over at Inside the Writer’s Mind, set a similar editing goal. Then I want to finally turn back to my work-in-progress novel, which I haven’t looked at in a year, and continue adding to my memoir. I find the latter fun and easy to write and therefore a welcome distraction when other projects get bogged down.

I’ll keep the submissions goal at 100 again. A couple stories were slow to get out last year after I finished them, which I think kept my submissions down. I need to do better at getting freshly edited stories out the door.

Then there is my reading goal. I like to include this since one of those pieces of advise you always hear is to be a good writer you have to be a good reader. For 2020, I set a goal of reading three 1000+ page tomes. What was I thinking? I got through one, and it took me from January to August, though I took a month break in the middle to read the stack of magazines that had built up. I also read (or listened to) eight other books. That latter number surprised me, so I’ll take it.

This year I’m scaling back the tomes. I’m going with reading one 1000+ pager. Then, I’ll add in another eight normal size books. That should allow me to make progress on the stack next to my nightstand that never seems to get smaller plus have room to squeeze in a couple new discoveries.

Now I’m ready to tackle 2021. How about you? Were you as productive as you hoped during the pandemic? What goals did you set for the new year?

4Q20 Update

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It’s that time of year when the writers in blog land update how they did during the prior year. Like last year, I plan to split this topic into two parts. Below is how I did in the fourth quarter. Next time I’ll write about my 2020 totals, how those compared to my 2020 goals, before finishing with my 2021 goals. Got to think about those last things though.

First, here are the numbers for 4Q20.

  • Words written = 27,201
  • Submissions = 25
  • Rejections = 31
  • Acceptances = 0
  • Holds = 0
  • Publications = 2
  • Awards = 0
  • Withdrawals = 0

I had a monster quarter word-wise. Looking back, that’s the most I’ve written in any quarter since I started this writing journey. NaNoWriMo was good to me. I flew through writing the middle grade book that was my goal for NaNoWriMo. Since I still had eight days left in November, I hammered out two flash stories and one 2000 word short story. By then I had run out of ideas that I had developed. I’m not a pantser. Though I have numerous other story ideas, I like to develop them before sitting down to write. So I started working on my memoir. Those events already happened; no need to develop them.

Finally, for good measure, in December, I wrote a 3000 word story in response to a prompt for the December meeting of the Northern Virginia Writers Club. The prompt was to take a character from one of my existing works and put the character in a holiday setting. I got carried away and took a story idea I already had and wrote a story mirroring A Christmas Carol. Might as well borrow from a classic.

I had no acceptances this quarter, which broke my streak of at least one acceptance a quarter. That was the biggest disappointment. I did have two stories published, which is always a thrill. “Temporally Out of Service” (my first published reprint) was included in the anthology The Trouble with Time Trouble, and “Shadow” found its way into Night Terrors Vol. 6. The editors of the latter were so encouraged by the reader responses that they invited authors to submit for an upcoming volume. I took advantage and sent in a horror short story I had written over the summer but hadn’t finalized until being motivated by this submission call. Hopefully, that will lead to my first acceptance of 2021. A writer can dream.

That was my fourth quarter, a strong end to a strange, strange year. How did you end the oddest year of our lifetime?