A Writing Year in Review

Nothing like filing taxes to get you thinking about last year. It wasn't a great year for my writing, but I did log my first story sale (actual money for something I wrote). I won't disclose figures, but it was enough to buy a twelve pack.

I wrote a children's book that I really liked, called "The Ice Boy." Oh, and another, called "Boris and the Spiders." And I heavily edited a story I wrote apparently in 2012, called "The Rubber Band Man in the Moon." These are all middle grade chapter books, of about the 5000 word variety. I write them, edit them to death, and then don't somehow know what to do with them.

I also wrote (it looks like) four short stories. Like I said, not a great writing year.

Apparently I did a lot of editing. I know this because I wrote a note to myself to this effect. For instance, I took a novella and added in a story thread that gives the main character a lot more depth. I added a whole subplot to another. I raked through one of my novels again. And I deeply edited a story that went through a round of critiques.

Looks like I submitted 22 manuscripts (some as many as 3 times), and almost all of those in the first nine months of the year. This was one those Ray Bradbury "snow flurries of rejections slips" periods, although 22 probably isn't that many. I need to up my game, this I know. Time to get my feet wet submitting the longer stuff, too.

On the up side: three of those rejections came with compliments, what I could call "near misses." One of those was a major market, a "professional" one. So that was very nice. And, it bears repeating, one came with with a "yes" and a small deposit in my account.

Oh, and I almost forgot: This blog hit 10,000 all-time views. It might not be a sky-rocket, but I'll take it. Thanks for reading!

Why am I telling you all this? I don't know. Camaraderie, maybe. The hope that it'll encourage one of us to keep moving forward? Yeah, it's probably that.