March Progress Report and April Goals 2017

Hey, it’s April already! The year is flying by. March was a cool month. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, we welcomed the latest edition to our family in March and he’s doing great. As you can imagine, when you bring home a newborn, everything else slows down a bit, but that’s totally okay. I can handle putting a few short story (re)submissions on hold for a few more weeks in order to stay up late with the little guy.

Anyhow, before moving on to my March “report card,” I wanted to plug a couple of appearances I’ve got scheduled.

Red Path Gallery & Tasting Room

First off, I’ll be giving a talk on the business of writing at Red Path Gallery & Tasting Room in Seward, NE on Sunday April 23. If you’re in the area, be sure to swing by, have a couple of adult beverages, and say hi.

ConStellation 8

The week after that, is ConStellation 8, a science fiction convention in Lincoln, NE, taking place from April 28-30. I’ll be there signing books and helping staff the table for the Nebraska Writer’s Guild. In addition to that, I’ll be participating in several writing panels at the con throughout the weekend as well. I’ll post details on my panels as soon as everything is finalized.

Now onto my other stuff…

Short Stories

So, yeah, I’m pulling the kid excuse on this one. I didn’t finish any new short stories last month, and I only resubmitted one story. Ha. Here are my current story story stats:

Number of submissions: 1
Number of rejections: 1 form letter
Number of acceptances: 0
Number still pending: 7

This month I should be able to finish a new story and get a couple of unpublished ones resubmitted as well.

Theme of Absence

I’m still having a lot of fun with Theme of Absence. We’re getting more submissions than ever before, so that queue continues to grow, which is just awesome. The increase in submissions and traffic does have my turn-around time up to around 35 days now, where I used to try to keep it under two weeks, so if you have a pending story with us, keep that in mind. If it’s been 45 days or so, feel free to query for a status update.

The acceptance rate is still hovering around 26%, and we’re fortunate to continue to be listed in both the 25 Most Approachable, and Most Personal markets on Duotrope.com.

WIP Novels

So I’ve got a growing list of works-in-progress. There’s the old YA fantasy, I’ve been in an on-again-off-again relationship with (we’re currently on a break). There’s also a YA horror novel I have outlined, but am having trouble finding my voice. And then there’s a three-(or maybe four)-book epic fantasy series I have planned, but haven’t worked on at all.

But what I’m really doing now, is finishing up revisions on a children’s fairy tale book I wrote last month. I think it’s a great story, but I still need to cut a couple hundred words out. I’m planning to pitch it at next week’s Nebraska Writers Guild Spring Conference, so wish me luck with it!

April Goals

You know, I’ve pretty much outlined my goals earlier in this post already, but just to make things official, my biggest priorities this month are to have the children’s book ready to pitch at the NWG conference and be totally prepared for my Red Path talk and ConStellation panels. My lower priority goals are to finish a new short story and resubmit and unpublished short stories I have that aren’t already out pending.

And that will do it. I hope you have a wonderful April and if you’re in Nebraska, I hope to see you at one of my events or at the NWG conference this month.

What are your goals for April? Leave a comment and let us know!