Yes, it's time for the annual look back at a year of sometimes writing, but mainly procrastinating and prevaricating and finding ways to avoid hitting the keyboard. Say, by updating this blog. So let's check those targets and see where the arrows lie:
Send a submission a day
Well, the Grinder tells me that I sent 339 submissions out in 2018, so a miss, but a near miss. I was actually on track until October-ish, when I started living away part of the week to work in London. This severely curtailed my writing time - but, as I've just said, boy, do I find reasons not to write - but two other factors came into play as well.
Firstly, noticeably fewer markets started to appear on the Grinder late on in 2018; sometimes it seemed a whole week would go by without any being added. Lower demand means constricted supply. Secondly, as stories were sold they - obviously - couldn't be sent out again, thus diminishing the stockpile of stories. That said, I sent nine stories to Clarkesworld this year, albeit a couple were old stories re-engineered; Clarkesworld being the venue to which I send stories first, so it's not as though I wasn't producing content.
Sell three stories
So, what about the stories that sold, that fly in the ointment as far as the first target was concerned (only joking, this is the one that counts). Well, the Grinder reports 11 acceptances in the year, so a hit:
Send a submission a day
Well, the Grinder tells me that I sent 339 submissions out in 2018, so a miss, but a near miss. I was actually on track until October-ish, when I started living away part of the week to work in London. This severely curtailed my writing time - but, as I've just said, boy, do I find reasons not to write - but two other factors came into play as well.
Firstly, noticeably fewer markets started to appear on the Grinder late on in 2018; sometimes it seemed a whole week would go by without any being added. Lower demand means constricted supply. Secondly, as stories were sold they - obviously - couldn't be sent out again, thus diminishing the stockpile of stories. That said, I sent nine stories to Clarkesworld this year, albeit a couple were old stories re-engineered; Clarkesworld being the venue to which I send stories first, so it's not as though I wasn't producing content.
Sell three stories
So, what about the stories that sold, that fly in the ointment as far as the first target was concerned (only joking, this is the one that counts). Well, the Grinder reports 11 acceptances in the year, so a hit:
- 'A Second Opinion' was taken by Terraform in January, and published in February
- 'New Shoes' was another January sale for Third Flatiron's Monstrosities anthology, which hit the bookshelves in March
- 'Product Recall' was my second showing in NewCon's Best of British Science Fiction series; a reprint sale, but one to be proud of
- 'They Have Been at a Great Feast of Languages, and Stol'n the Scraps': another reprint sale in Timeshifts, which came out in August
- 'General Katutian Surveys her Triumph': a drabble sold to Martian Magazine in June, but doesn't seem to be on their site any longer. Odd
- 'Charles Edward Tuckett's Yuletide Message': sold in June, but only just published by NewMyths.com, a bit like Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everybody' but without the guaranteed annual income stream...
- 'We told you lard was sugar-free': a tweet-sized story in Story Seed Vault
- 'Farndale's Revelation': another reprint sale, in July, but to Nexxis Fantasy who have gone very, very silent, despite life on their website. I doubt this will happen
- 'The Loimaa Protocol' will be appearing in this year's WhimsyCon anthology; edits dealt with over the Christmas period
- Story number ten is one that was sold to G Allen Cook for his Deductions, Delinquents and Detectives anthology, which has been cancelled for reasons of ill health. I wish him well
- Lastly, Abyss and Apex bought 'May Nothing but Happiness Come Through Your Door', which is slated for publication in 2020
So, nine or ten real sales, but three reprints (of which one looks like a non-runner), and two are a hundred words or less. That's about 13,000 words of new material. Not that impressive. But add in an honourable mention in L Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future competition, a couple of near misses with Daily Science Fiction, another with Shoreline of Infinity, and stories still held by Galaxy's Edge and James Gunn's Ad Astra, and it's looking like a year to build on.
Sell a novel
A miss. Baen decided to pass on my YA Harry Potter-meets-Doctor Who (figuratively) novel after being "selected from the slush pile for further examination" for over two years. Haven't got any remaining irons in the fire; at least, none with any sort of glow. I guess I need to pick myself up, dust myself off and get back to marketing.
Write a novel
Or, more specifically, finish writing a novel. Big miss, particularly as the short stuff is meant to help market the bigger pieces - like 2084 - that pay by the sale rather than by the word. I've taken 'Toefoot', my sci-fi thriller, from 16,300 words to 18,800. Please don't extrapolate a completion date from that rate if progress...
Publish a novel
I have a novel written thirty years ago, juvenilia, that will never make the cut professionally, but I have ambitions of putting it out as an ebook. It's written, just needs an edit, a polish, formatting and epublishing. Have I? No. Miss.
Oh, and for regular readers, yes, that's right - I am still awaiting my kill fee from Carrie Cuinn at Lakeside Circus...
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This year's targets? Same as last year's, with a recognition of the need to focus on the long pieces, plus to complete my SFWA qualification, which I think I'm about thirty percent of the way to (or, possibly, put negatively, to disqualify myself from Writers of the Future). A third straight showing in Best of British Science Fiction - or one in Best of British Fantasy - would be nice too, but there's nothing I can do about that any more, those submissions are in. Watch this space.
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