Half-term report

Halfway through the year and, as I've already flagged, I'm gunning for a submission a day.  So, how am I doing?

• 188 submissions
• 154 rejections
• 6 acceptances

In terms of stories out, I'm on track; and I've reached my basic goal of three sales.  So far, so good.

Half of those acceptances came in the first six weeks of the year, a veritable avalanche.  'A Second Opinion' has already appeared on Terraform; New Shoes in Third Flatiron's Monstrosities; and Product Recall reprinted in NewCon Press' Best of British Sci-Fi 2017.  I'm sure all three grace your shelves, actual and virtual.

I had to wait until May for the fourth, another reprint, with 'They Have Been at a Great Feast of Languages, and Stol’n the Scraps' getting a second airing in Timeshift.  Many thanks if you helped out with its Kickstarter.

The fifth was a drabble, 'General Katutian Surveys her Triumph', which has been accepted by Martian (both this as Timeshift are the brainchildren of Eric S Fomley).  A curious exercise in that I wrote five, four of which were very 'me' and this fifth one, redolent in style to a bloke in a rubber suit waving a sink plunger around calling it a ray gun.  But that's the one that sold.  I think the writing gods may be telling me something.

I also invited my children to compose and submit, but their phones turned out to be more inviting.

The sixth acceptance is hot off the press: my flash about technology and ageing, Charles Edward Tuckett's Yuletide Message, has been taken by NewMyths.com.  Another interesting gestation, in that the story was originally rejected, albeit as a near miss with some very heartfelt feedback from editor Susan Shell Winston, last September.  When  Passages, an anthology of stories about coming-of-age at all ages, was announced I pointed out that it would be an excellent fit, and its resubmission was very generously accepted.  But not to the anthology, just the ezine for which it was originally a near miss, curiously.  Hence I've rather screwed up NewMyth's response turnaround chart on The Grinder with a 393 day acceptance, but it's another sale either way.

This contrasts with my somewhat bitter experience of Parsec's short story contest, for which I sent in two stories, one of which seemed to fit their theme perfectly.  My hopes were raised when the deadline for notification of results passed with only a rejection of the weaker tale.  I chased, a couple of times - perhaps they were trying to boil four down for the three winning slots, or debating gold, silver and bronze.  No, turns out that they'd simply forgotten to send me both rejections.  Ho hum.

Putting such typical experiences aside, but adding in a rewrite request from James Gunn's Ad Astra, and another submission shortlisted by Abyss and Apex, and 2018 is shaping up to be a pretty good year.