Man, it seems like just yesterday I was sitting at the dentist office talking about how great the weather was (this was during a period of something like 10 solid days of non-stop rain) and he said, “Yeah, a lot of people complain about it, but I just remind them of what comes next.” Well, what comes next was the typical Nebraska summer heat wave, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad this year as it has been.
Anyhow, like I said, that seemed like yesterday, and now summer is nearly over. My oldest is starting kindergarten, my wife is going back to work, and the other three kids are going back to the babysitter. Cycle of life, right?
Sooooooo…here’s a quick update on all of my writing stuff for the last 60-ish days.
Short stories
Let’s start with the ever fun short story submission stats. I didn’t work on anything new because (see below in the WIP Novel part), but I did continue sending off unpublished stuff. Here’s how I did:
- Number of submissions: 5
- Number of rejections: 8 (2 personal, 4 form letters, 2 non-responses)
- Number of acceptances: 0
- Number still pending: 6
Kind of brutal, I suppose. There were a couple of rejections that actually came as a surprise, but it’s like I say all the time: Rejections are part of the game, and if you can’t handle a rejection, you may not be cut out for writing fiction.
Theme of Absence
I’m still having a lot of fun with Theme of Absence. Traffic has been up slightly and we’re still getting submissions at a rate that is almost difficult to keep up with. I’ve almost got my response time back under thirty days, but I need to stay on top of things to keep it there. I’ve already got stories scheduled up to early October, so if things keep up, I may need to close for submissions for a month or two. We’ll see.
The current acceptance rate is still hovering around 25%, so if you submit, you’ve got a 1 in 4 chance 🙂
We’ll also be opening the Halloween Horror Flash Fiction contest for the third year next month, so be sure to check the site for when that opens up.
But the biggest news with Theme of Absence is that I’ve opened up a Patreon page for the site. I want to take the site to the next level, and hope that the additional funding will help. Patrons of the site will have access to a special feed with commentary about the stories, traffic and submission stats, and maybe some other stuff. I’ve got other site-wide goal listed there as well; things like increasing author payout and introducing more seasonal contests. Check it out here and see if you’re interesting in supporting us.
WIP Novel(s)
I mentioned earlier that I hadn’t been working on any short stories lately, and that’s because any non-blogging, non-podcasting, or non-ThemeOfAbsence-ing writing time has been spent working on the first book of a planned fantasy trilogy.
I’ve talked it about on the site before, and even did a podcast on it, but I did make a lot of progress on it. Although, to be honest, I don’t have a lot written yet. Just a few scenes. I’m still doing lots (and lots) of character and setting profiles, and just trying to have the story straight before I get into the hardcore writing. I finished an outline of all of the major points of the first book, but there is a lot of detail that still needs to be written.
And, yes, I know that eventually the world-building needs to stop and the writing needs to start. But I’m hoping that by doing the hard work first, I’ll avoid doing a lot of the really hard stuff later.
Appearances
You know what? I don’t have anymore appearances scheduled. I had a table with the Nebraska Writers Guild at the Nebraska Book Festival, but other than that, I had to pull out of two other events this summer due to scheduling conflicts.
Goals for August / September
I hate to say it, but I don’t have a lot of written for the next couple of months. My highest priorities are to just maintain the posting schedule I’ve been on here for the last couple of years and continue to work on the fantasy trilogy. I’ll resubmit any rejected short stories, and maybe try to finish another one. Not sure yet. Check back in two months to see where I’m at, I guess.
And until then, I hope you’re reaching your writing goals and had a good couple of months. If you’ve got any accomplishments or goals you’d like to share, feel free to leave them in the comments section.
I really appreciate the progress report! I’m brand new to writing fiction, so these kinds of reassurances are so helpful. I love the speculative fiction genre. Thanks so much for publishing “Hello” in Theme of Absence in April. Another piece I wrote called “Haunted Water Aerobics” was accepted in Gathering Storm Magazine, Vol. 3, which is available on Amazon. I’ve gotten quite a few rejections as well and I’m hoping to hear back from 3-4 other places for submissions I’ve sent. I’m just now starting to write a novella length work. I’m pretty excited about it, but I’m always excited in the beginning–then I fizzle out. I hope I can keep the momentum going. Best of luck to you!
Thank for the kinds words. One of the reasons I post these “report cards” is that I do hope to encourage other writers to keep up the hard work and to show that we are all going through the same struggle. The other reason I post it is to (in theory) help hold myself accountable to reaching the writing goals I set.
I’m happy to see you’re still working on fiction and with you continued success with it!