A Week of Writing: 1/1/22 to 1/9/22

The first week (and a bit more) of the new year has come and gone, so it’s time to start documenting my writing endeavors for 2022. Here we go.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from playwright and novelist Larry L. King. 

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”

—Larry L. King

This quote pretty much sums up my goals for 2022. I have a novel to revise, and I’ve jumped back into the the thick of it. My goal is to write and rewrite it until it becomes something I feel confident sending to agents and publishers. That might take a month or three, but I want to do it right. My reading fell off in a major way in 2021, and that’s something I need to address in 2022. I want to read more. I want to discover new writers with new and different perspectives. In short, I want to immerse myself in fiction because I know I’m a better writer when I’m plowing through novel after novel. So, yeah, write, rewrite, read are my guiding literary principles for this new year.

Short Story Submissions

I’ve been pretty active in submission land in the new year.

• Submissions Sent: 5
• Rejections: 3
• Acceptances: 1
• Publications: 0
• Shortlist: 1
• Withdrawn: 0
• Pending: 14
• 2022 Total Subs: 5

The last ten days or so have been pretty busy in terms of submissions. I sent five new subs, collected three rejections, landed an acceptance, and had another story shortlisted. Not bad. The acceptance definitely takes a bit of pressure off. I always want to get on the board as soon as possible in a new year, and this is a HUGE improvement over last year. My first acceptance in 2021 didn’t come until April.

My goal is, once again, to send 100 submissions for the year, which breaks down to around nine subs a month. I’ve got a good start on that.

Novel

My big goal for the first quarter of 2022 is to finish the revisions on my novel Hell to Play. I’ve adopted a new approach I think will keep me on track and help me get this thing done. I’ve revised half a dozen novels in the past, and though there are always challenges, this particular novel is proving far more difficult than the others. I’m out of excuses, though, and it’s time to just get it done so I can a) start shopping this book and b) start writing a new novel. Like I said, my goal is to finish this in the first quarter, which is more than enough time. Wish me luck. 🙂

Goals

The goal for the week is to work on revisions of Hell to Play as much as possible. As always, I also want to send out more submissions.

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That was my week. How was yours?