Since my last post, the writing has continued at a steady pace. It takes up a huge chunk of my free time, but I’m pretty positive I’m still at an average of one new story per week. I really need to compile a…wait…gimme a sec…okay, twelve. I’ve written twelve new short stories since I started, and I’ve sent out eleven of those. One is a little special, and I need to rework it and get it in proper shape. It’s hard to find time for rewrites. I have rewritten a few of them, however. Tonight I did a rewrite of a very old story that I’ve been sending out maybe three times in as many years. I think this time around I added a little bit of something to it that will make it more than a simple account of a scary monster attack. We’ll see. If it gets accepted, I’ll let you know.
On the subject of acceptance, if anything at all happens I’ll let you know. Actually, at this point I’ll just let you know if something gets accepted and goes into print. I had two stories accepted last year, and one of those is still “in process.” It’s been over a year, and the story still hasn’t printed, so in fear that I’ll be paving a road with “It’s coming! No, really! Really!!!” I have just decided to let news of acceptances go until something really happens.
That said, the rejections are coming in fast and furious! I just got three within the past eight or nine days. I have found it is true what people say, that it is easier to take rejection if you have multiple pieces in the mail, since your hopes aren’t pinned on a single piece. Plus, I found it very strange but cool to note that I felt much better about being rejected when I sent another brand new piece out.
Tonight I stayed up late and tended to submissions. I really do wish I had someone to take care of that end of business for me. Once things get rejected it’s a bit of a task to comb the markets over and find somewhere to send off the old stuff. Then, as tonight, there is the occasional task of doing a rewrite to try and help out something that seems like it needs it. However, I’m happy to say that I got one piece printed and packaged up for a postal submission, and I found two markets to send of email submissions to after that. This includes the rewrite on the one piece. Oh, and earlier, when this (very early morning) as yesterday evening, I put in a couple more hours on another new short story. I hope to finish that one up later today (after I’ve taken an eight-hour nap). Then that one will go out to…somewhere. Hmmm…I thought I had an idea for a place to send it, but I guess not, that was last week’s story I suppose.
I have ten pieces out for consideration right now. Two of them are to publishers who take five or six months to respond, so I guess I won’t have any less than two out through most of the rest of this challenge I’ve set for myself. The most I’ve had out so far at once is eleven. I could very well have eleven out again by tomorrow if I wrap up this new one tomorrow (and I hope to).
Oh, there’s also been an update to my writing plan. It was going to be a story a week through the end of 2010. This has been extended. I was watching my Charles Beaumont documentary, and in it Ray Bradbury says he told both William F. Nolan and Beaumont, “Write a story a week for a year, you can’t go wrong. You begin to write quality.” Well, I want to write quality, and I’m not a man of half-measures when goals arise, so I’ll be writing an average of one story a week through I guess it’ll be June of 2011.
That’s enough for now. I’m tired, and there’s more writing and hopefully some sculpture work to be done tomorrow.