A.C. Wise

In my totally unscientific observation of things, years that end in an odd number tend to be worse for me in terms of publishing than years ending in an even number. 2009 was no exception. My submission stats for this year:

47 stories submitted
42 stories rejected
5 stories pending
1 story accepted (submitted in 2008)

I was pickier about which markets I submitted to this year, I spent more time editing and re-writing than in previous years, and overall my output was lower. (For comparison purposes, last year I had 72 submissions and 6 acceptances). I’m hoping that the odd-even pattern will hold true for 2010, making it a successful publishing year.

Six of my stories, which had been accepted for publication in previous years were published during 2009:

Sisters of the Blessed Diving Order of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew, at Strange Horizons.

Fortune, in Fictitious Force #6

Revisionist History, at Fantasy Magazine

A story in the nemonymous/anonymous Cern Zoo anthology

The Children of Ramah at Dark Recesses Press (which apparently doesn’t archive old fiction?)

A Mouse Ran Up the Clock, in Electric Velocipede #19

For the first time in a while, I have no accepted stories pending publication, which means I better get cracking if I want to see any of my work published in 2010 (which, obviously, I do).

Related to writing, I attended my first real con this year, Worldcon 67/Anticipation in my home town of Montreal. It was overwhelming, in a good way, and it’s definitely got me wanting to attend other cons in the future. One of the best parts of Worldcon, for me, was attending my first writing workshop. It was just the shove in the back I needed, and it opened up a whole new side of writing for me, one which I hope will ultimately make me a better writer. It also led to me joining both an in-person workshop and an online workshop (hi, guys), and I’ve found both invaluable so far. So, despite 2009 essentially be a year of nothing but rejections, it still feels like a win writing-wise.

I wish you all a successful, happy and healthy 2010; may the year be full of words - written, read, spoken and heard - that bring you joy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Random Rambling, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.