It's been a long, hot summer, and I've not been writing much. A few minutes ago I finished and submitted my 43rd short story of the year, a 3,000-word romance/confession that takes place on Thanksgiving.
Yesterday I saw a call for submissions from an editor seeking "a dozen or so" Thanksgiving-themed romance/confession stories by Monday morning. I had written the first 400 words of a Thanksgiving story back on July 18, 2007, and had left it sitting on my hard drive. Yesterday afternoon I blew off the digital dust and then spent a few hours yesterday evening and several hours this evening completing the story.
6 comments:
That's a heck of an output. How many of those have you placed?
It's been a particularly slow year for me, so far. I've only had 14 acceptances, and some of those were for stories written in previous years.
My rejection rate is also higher than usual: I've already received more rejections this year than I did in all of last year, despite a similar level of productivity.
I attribute the low sales/high rejection rate to two things: changes at some of my usual markets (changes in editorial requirements that I've not yet mastered and economic conditions that have caused lower page counts) and my attempts to break into new markets.
The low sales/high rejection rate is a touch depressing. I've had a several-year run where almost every short story I wrote sold, and often on the first submission.
I was starting to believe I had the golden touch.
But, nope, I don't. My over-inflated ego is working hard to adjust to my new reality...
Keep your chin up, Michael. The year's not over yet so you still have a chance to sell plenty of stories.
By the way, I just started my own blog on literature hardboiled and thought you might like to see it:
http://briandrake88.blogspot.com/
"Brian Drake" is the name I'm writing under now.
--Brian Evankovich
Like Brian says, there's a fair bit of the year left to run, so maybe that golden touch hasn't run out, it's just been saving itself up.
As has been said, chin up and don't let it get to you. Doing better than most.
Brian, why the byline change?
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