Happy December! My Writing Year in Review

Wow, is it December? This year has been both extremely long and also gone in the blink of an eye.

If you're a person who nominates for awards and things, may I direct you to my Awards Eligibility post?

So, how was my writing year?  Pretty amazing, actually. Even not including my Patreon, I've had more stories published this year than I have to date, with three already out, one of which is in a pro market, and the final one forthcoming on Boxing Day. I've also had one more acceptance (so far!). Contract forthcoming, so I'll announce more when I can.

Though speaking of that pro market...."Surveillance Fatigue", published in Escape Pod, qualified me to become an Associate member of the SFWA.....so I applied and was accepted!  It has also made me Campbell eligible and every time I mention that I realize I should look into it further but, here we are. I also joined the Science Fiction Writers Codex

I finished October Madness early. No, I don't care that early is "cheating".

I don't know what it was this year, all those stories on submission made me super frenetic about how I had all those stories on submission. So I loaded up the submission queue super quick and then crouched over my email like



via GIPHY

But, I soldiered on and got it done!

31 submissions for the 31 days of October! Of those 31 submissions, I have received 11 rejections. I'm not going to give you the form/personal breakdown, but I will tell you....one of those rejections was a one hour rejection,which was a first. I mean, don't get me wrong, the agony of Schrodinger's Submission is real, but one hour? Ouch.



via GIPHY

I also know that submissions are very subjective. There could be a specific issue an editor is building, and an editor's taste and vision is always a factor as well. It isn't necessarily a value judgement. Etc. Etc. It's hard to keep that emotional balance on a day when you get 4 or 5 rejections, though.

But, the fact that I still have 20 submissions from just October is staggering. And 5 more from prior to that, with a grand total of 25 submissions, 24 of them unique submissions (I simultaneously submitted that one story which had its submission birthday. What've I got to lose, right?) That's an awful lot of short stories I think are ready enough to be out there, just waiting for the right editor and market to say yes, and that's something I'm pretty proud of.