Wow. Another year is here and almost gone. I can’t believe it. I think, overall, it was a good year for my writing…But you always wish you could do more, write more, get a few more words down, get a few more stories accepted. 
So, how to sum up a year of writing fiction? It’s harder than you think. Here’s how I would like to divide this up: into the Hard Stuff and Soft Stuff. The Hard Stuff is easily quantifiable: stories accepted/rejected, word counts, that sort of thing. The Soft Stuff is more qualitative, it’s about style and technique, not stuff you can easily quantify. Ready? Here we go!
One Story Accepted
Way back on January 1, I had a story published on Between Worlds Magazine. It’s called “So You Found Me.” It was the first flash fiction piece of mine that was ever published and I was very happy with the way it came out. Check it out if you get a minute.
As for my others stories, will they were sent out, but they haven’t been accepted—yet. These are three other stories, two of which I think have really good chances of getting published. But before I move on, in the interest of normalizing literary rejection, let’s look at the stats for my stories in 2017 so far. Let’s break this down in all its stark brutality:
Number of times stories sent to magazines: 16
Stories rejected: 15
Answers pending: 1
Acceptance percentage: 0%
Ouch! I’m not letting that get me down though. Why? Partially because you have to soldier on through rejection. That’s what writers do. But also because these statistics don’t tell the whole truth.
First, it’s a woefully low statistical sample, which can be misleading. Let’s say many of these magazine have acceptance rates of around 5%. Some are higher, some lower. Now, think about that. It means given they all had a 5% acceptance rate, for every story they accept, they’re rejecting 20 (If my math is right. Is it? I’m horrible at math!). So you have about a 1/20 chance of getting your story accepted. Assuming this hypothetical magazine accepts all worthy stories equally, you would have to send a story 20 times before getting accepted. As it is, I didn’t even match that 20 number, sending my stories out just 16 times. In fact, many established writers I have talked to will send a story out between 20-25 times before trunking (abandoning and archiving) it. So, it’s partially my own fault, because I didn’t send out my stories enough.
Also, my submission spree doesn’t take into account what kind of rejections I received. Some of these were not blanket “form” rejections. They were rejections saying that my story got close to getting accepted in a couple of instances. In another instance a literary magazine rejected one of the stories, but asked for me to send future stories their way. (The first time that has happened with a literary magazine). So, what at first looks pretty abysmal, wasn’t that bad and in fact, gives me hope that these stories will finally find a home.
Word Counts—Keeping It Up
Best of all, I kept the word counts up. This was not an easy year to do this. It has been filled with distractions. But I have been able to remain focused. I have some reasons for this, which I will get into below—but I want to list one here. I think I have been able to keep my schedule and writing ritual consistent. I have minimized distractions from blogging and submitting work and sat down and focused on producing words. That is very important.
I will not get into specific words counts in this post, but bring that up in the next post.
Blog Writing
Blogging can seem like a chore—and it often is! But I kept it up this year: I blogged once every two weeks. Even if it was to say: “I’ll see you guys next time.”
I also changed the name of the blog from “A Writer Begins” to “Inside the Writer’s Mind” on its fifth (!) anniversary. And good news: that posting consistency is paying off. Blog readership is way up this year. The number of visitors is more than double last year and almost triple last year’s total. So, that’s sweet! Thanks for checking in, everyone.
And now for the Soft Stuff…
Writing the Story That Burns in Your Belly
I have written about this one a lot here. Story selection. How do you know which story to write? Which piece of all those in your pre-writing pile to pick out and actually get down on paper? It’s tough, but I think I’m figuring it out.
As I wrote, it’s that story that is “burning in your belly.” The one with the characters/scenes you can’t stop thinking about or embellishing with little details. That’s what you want to write. I’ve known this for some time now, but I haven’t always practiced it. That ended this year in March. When I said “Screw it!,” sat down and started writing the story(ies) that were on the top of my pre-writing pile. I finally started practicing what I preach and I think it’s helping me crank my word counts higher.
Writing with Music
Another thing that is helping the word counts, I think, is the decision to bring back my music. I go to cafes to write usually and they have their own music which is fine. And they usually also have somewhat loud patrons, which can be distracting. So, I went back to something I used to do a long, long time ago: writing with my music on.
When I go write on the weekends now, I bring headphones and plug in to listen to my music. It blocks out any conversations (most importantly), but it also lets me change my mental mood a bit as I pick a faster or slower or happier or darker music depending on the scene I’m putting down on the page. And again—if word count is any indication—this has helped my writing.
I love little tweaks like this that can up your writing game.
Go to a Con?
This is one thing I said I would do last year that I didn’t do. Oh well. I would like to get to a good writing Con in 2018, but we will have to see. There are so many things to do and it’s always hard to fit this one in.
Overall
Overall, I will call 2017 a great year for stick-to-it-ness in my fiction writing. Did I get any stories accepted? Yeah, just one short piece. But I kept writing and that’s the most important thing. The standard by which all other successes have to be judged because it’s the one thing I can control and that comes down to me. If a story gets accepted or rejected, if people come to the blog or not—I have no control over. So, I’m glad the tweaks I made seem to have worked and the word counts are heading in the right direction. Now, I just have to hone in on editing and submitting more in 2018.
But that’s a post for next time.
Inside the Writer's Mind 