Withdrawing a Withdrawal: A Submission Saga
I often encounter a general sense among authors that magazine editors are waiting to pounce on them if they make a mistake or need to ask for an appropriate allowance in the submission process. The belief is that an error or request will result in a scathing rebuke and maybe even inclusion on the dreaded “do not publish” list. In my experience, this simply isn’t true. The editors I’ve had the pleasure of communicating and working with have been polite, professional, and understanding. Most of them are or have been writers too, and are quite familiar with the rigors of the submission process from the author’s side of the fence.
Let me see if I can illustrate how accommodating an editor can be with a little tale and timeline of a story submission I made back in 2015. This timeline will also give you a good idea of when and how I send submission status queries and withdrawal letters.
Just a quick note, I have removed parts of the publisher responses below because they contain unimportant details or they might help identify the publisher. The latter isn’t too much of a concern since, sadly, the publisher folded some time ago, but that’s how I do things on the blog.
It Begins – 6/20/2015
Over five years ago, I had a little horror flash piece I was quite proud of, so I took a chance and fired it off to a pro markets dealing specifically with horror flash fiction. Here’s my cover letter.
Dear Fiction Editors,
Please consider my short story [Story Title] for publication at [publication]. The story is approximately 1,000 words in length.
Bio: I currently work as the acquisitions editor for Skull Island eXpeditions, a fiction imprint of Privateer Press, Inc. My short fiction has recently been published by Allegory, Devilfish Review, and The Molotov Cocktail.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Aeryn Rudel
What you see here is an ancient version of my cover letter. The one I use now is pretty much the same, and the only real change is the bio ( I’d actually left Privateer Press on June 1st of this year, but I’d forgotten to update my bio). Since this was a Submittable submission I received the following acknowledgement the same day.
Dear Aeryn,
Thank you for sending your submission to [publisher].
You can review your submission online by going here: [Submittable link]
Thanks!
I settled in to wait, knowing it might be a while. I believe the market had a 120-day average response time.
The Long Wait – 12/21/2015
After six months had passed without any response, I sent a submission status query.
Dear Fiction Editors,
I am writing to inquire about the status of my short story [story title] submitted to [publisher] on 6/20/15.
Thank you,
Aeryn Rudel
Six months is plenty long to wait for a response, and there’s nothing wrong with firing off a status query if you’ve exceeded both the stated and the expected wait times (and the publisher guidelines do not prohibit it). So that’s what I did.
No Response & Withdrawal – 1/15/2016
I waited for a response to my query for over three weeks, and then I sent a withdrawal letter.
Dear Editors,
I have not received a response to my query sent 12/21/15 regarding the status of my submission [story title]. At this time, I would like to withdraw the story from consideration at [publisher].
Thank you,
Aeryn Rudel
At this point I’d ben waiting for seven months, well beyond the response time for the market, so I just chalked this up to a) the submission was lost through a glitch in Submittable or b) the publisher had essentially issued a no-response rejection. I figured it was the former because I’d received a rejection from this publisher before. Little did I know there was a third option.
I should note I do not use this withdrawal letter any longer. The template I use now is better worded, I think. Looking back, this one feels too confrontational, which is not my intention.
An Unexpected Response – 1/22/2016
Exactly one week after my withdrawal letter, the publisher sent me this notification.
Hello!
Just a quick update to let you know that your story has made it to the final round of reviews for publication in [publisher] magazine and anthology series.
Thanks for your patience!
Whoops! As you can see, I was in kind of a pickle. To be clear, I don’t think I did anything wrong by sending a status query and withdrawal letter, but I really wanted my story to remain under consideration. What to do, huh?
The Un-Withdrawal Letter – 1/22/2016
On the same day the editor sent me the shortlist letter, I responded with the following email. I agonized over what to say, but, in the end, I figured I had nothing to lose by just being completely honest about the situation.
Dear Editors,
I recently withdrew this story after sending a status query letter. I have not submitted the story elsewhere, and in light of the recent note you sent regarding the story making it to the final round of reviews, I would, of course, like to keep it under consideration at [publisher]. However, since the story’s status is now withdrawn, I understand if that’s not possible.
Thank you for your consideration.
Aeryn Rudel
I would have completely understood if the publisher decided to let my story go. I did withdraw it after all, and I was essentially asking him to do more work on my behalf.
A Second Chance – 1/22/2016
Thankfully, the editor did not leave me hanging after sending my un-withdrawal letter and responded with the following short email.
Aeryn,
Ok, I’ve added it back into the final round of reviews. Thanks!
Whew! It was quite magnanimous (and much appreciated) for the editor to put my story back on the shortlist. Maybe he did it because he liked the story that much, or maybe, like most editors, he’s just an understanding human being. Either way, I was more than a little relieved.
A Happy Ending – 4/1/2016
A few months after the editor put my story back on the shortlist, I received this letter.
Thanks for sending [story title] to [publisher]. I have finished my review and have decided to accept it and offer you a contract. Please look for a contract to be issued through Docusign shortly.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thanks again.
Needless to say, this was not the response I expected after withdrawing my withdrawal. I was quite pleased for the acceptance and that my persistence paid off.
The takeaway to my little tale is that polite, professional, and appropriate communication with an editor should never hurt your chances at future publication. So if you make a mistake or need to ask an editor to make an allowance for you, like I did, be honest and transparent and things will more than likely work out.
Submission Statement: January 2021
The first month of the new year is in the books. Here are all my submissions, rejections, and other writerly doings for January 2021
January 2021 Report Card
- Submissions Sent: 11
- Rejections: 7
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 1
- Further Consideration: 0
January was a good month for submissions, and eleven gets me off to a great start toward my goal of one-hundred for the year. The bad news is I got skunked, acceptance-wise, for the first time in twelve months. Yep, my acceptance streak is over. I think a combination of some slower responses and a dearth of new material contributed to me taking the L last month. Of course, the usual reasons also apply. Things like editorial taste and bad timing are ever-present. Hopefully, February will be better, though I still need to write more new material if I really want to get back on track.
Rejections
Seven rejections this month.
- Standard Form Rejections: 4
- Upper-Tier Form Rejections: 1
- Personal Rejections: 2
I actually thought I received fewer rejections in January, but, uh, nope. Seven isn’t a ton, but it’s more than I’d like without an acceptance to dull the pain. 🙂 Anyway, most of these rejections were standard form NOs, though I did get a couple of personal rejections. One of them was quite informative, as the editor let me know the rejection was largely a matter of taste (the story was a little too pessimistic for them). That’s incredibly useful information, as it lets me dial in future submissions to the same market. In fact, I’ve already sent them another story that’s more positive and uplifting in tone. We’ll see if it fares better.
Publications
I did have one publication in January. My story “The Night, Forever, and Us” was published at Love Letters to Poe. They’re a publisher of gothic horror, and though it’s not a subgenre I write in much, I did manage one a few years ago that fit the bill. You can read that story by clicking the link below.
Read “The Night, Forever, and Us”
And that was my January. How was your month?
Taking All the Credits: 15 Years of Writing
I’m currently in the process of putting together an author’s CV, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and it’s been fun to stroll down memory lane and to see what I’ve written and published over the last fifteen years. I presented a broad overview of my writing credits last year on the blog, but since I have to do it anyway for the CV, I thought I’d break down those credits in more detail so you can see what I’ve been up to in the last decade and a half. Plus, I’ve added a few since then. 😉
Long Form Fiction – 14
- Novels. 7
- Novellas: 2
- Novelettes: 5
All of my long form fiction is media-tie in, that is to say stories you’re contracted to write in someone else’s IP. In this case, the majority of these novels and such are set in the Iron Kingdoms, the principal setting for Privateer Press. I should also note than one of the novels and one of the novellas was co-written with my then colleague William Shick. This only comprises the works I’ve actually published. I’ve written three more novels, two of which I’m in the process of revising. So, hopefully, that novel total will increase in the near(ish) future.
Short Fiction – 118
- Microfiction: 4
- Flash Fiction: 50
- Short Stories: 50
- Other: 14
The categories above are self-explanatory, except for other. That category comprises two things. One, narrative fiction that isn’t really a complete story. For example, it might be narrative vignette introductions to gaming text or the times where I wrote one section of a longer narrative. The second type of fiction that falls into the other category includes odd ducks like the parody articles I wrote in support of Privateer Press’ alien invasion game LEVEL 7. They’re not really short stories, but they’re not really articles or gaming material either.
I should point out that this is the number of credits, not individual pieces. So reprint credits for the same stories are included in this total. There aren’t a ton of those, though, about half a dozen or so. The other big separation is gaming or media tie-in fiction versus fiction entirely of my own creation. There we have 47 gaming-related pieces (mostly short stories and the works in the other category) and 71 shorts, flashes, and micros all my own.
Tabletop Gaming and Other – 163
- Adventures: 16
- Setting Material: 46
- Rules Material: 96
- Other: 5
The first two-thirds of my writing career was focused on the tabletop gaming industry, and more than half my writing credits are derived from tabletop roleplaying and miniature games. Generally, those credits fall into three broad categories. Adventures, sometimes called modules, are pre-packaged stories, complete with monsters, villains, and other challenges, that a group of RPG players can play through. Setting material is articles and other short pieces that expand the fantasy world where an RPG or miniature game takes place. These read kind of like encyclopedia entries or history articles on, uh, things that don’t exist and never happened. They occasionally blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, but not enough that I’d include them in my fiction credits. Rules material are articles and supplements that focus on the nuts and bolts mechanics of a game: skills, spells, monsters, character classes, and so on. The “other” here is simply my recent Rejectomancy articles over at Dark Matter Magazine. (I wasn’t sure where else to put them.)
Most of this gaming material was written for two systems: Dungeons & Dragons and The Iron Kingdoms. There’s more nuance to those two categories, and those familiar with gaming will quickly see that nuance in my actual credits. For most readers, though, this is all the nuance that’s required, I think. 🙂 I should also note that about a dozen of these credits were co-authored with various folks I worked with over the years (co-authors are listed in the actual credits on my credits page).
Well, there you have it, 295 writing credits over fifteen years. Interestingly, a large portion of my fiction writing credits, like sixty percent of them (more if you go by actual words written), have come in the last five years or so. Of course, this post does not include any of my non-writing stuff, and I have another hundred-plus editing, developing, and production credits spread out pretty evenly over the years. If you want a more thorough picture of my writing credits and some actual examples, check out the credits page on this blog. Or if you don’t want to wade through sixteen years of credits and just want to see what I’ve been up to lately (and maybe read something), head on over to the publications page.
It’s nice to look back on all this work, and see how I’ve grown as a writer and how my career has switched tracks (a couple times). Of course, I’m now solely focused on fiction (though a particularly juicy gaming commission could possibly lure me back), and I hope to continue to add to my long and short fiction credits over the next fifteen years and beyond. 🙂
A Week of Writing: 1/18/21 to 1/24/21
Another week of writing come and gone. Have a look.
Words to Write By
This week’s quote comes from author Jane Yolen.
“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.”
–Jane Yolen
One of the pieces of advice you’re bound to hear when you’re a writer is that you must write as often as possible, every day if you can. Now, I have some opinions on the efficacy of the every day thing, but what I like about Jane Yolen’s quote here is that she doesn’t demand narrative writing to stay in shape, just any writing. I think this is a useful bit of advice, and it’s worked well for me. On days where I’m really feeling stuck, but I want to at least get the ol’ writing muscles limbered up, I’ll work on an outline, write a blog post, even the occasional journal entry. Generally, that’s enough to get the creative energies flowing in the right direction, and often as not, I’m am able to produce some narrative fiction in the same day.
The Novel(s)
Not much work on either novel last week. I have a good reason for this . . . Okay, I have A reason for this. Whether it’s good or not is open to interpretation. I can say that what is currently holding me back should be resolved this week, and I’ll be able to get on with things.
Short Story Submissions
Pretty decent submission total last week.
- Submissions Sent: 3
- Rejections: 1
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 0
- Shortlist: 0
- Pending: 10
Three submission last week gives me eight for the month, and the one I sent this morning gives me nine. That’s my quota met for January, though I’m likely gonna get a few more submission out before the 31st. Only one rejection last week, and it was same-day. I keep expecting a pile of others to show up, but nothing so far. It’s looking more and more like I’m going to end January without an acceptance, which will break my twelve-month streak. Such is the gig, and I’m sure February will catch me up. 🙂
Super Secret Project
The announcement is coming very soon now. So excited to share this one with you folks.
Goals
Still keeping it simple: write, submit, revise.
And that was my week. How was yours?
A Week of Writing: 1/11/21 to 1/17/21
Another week of writing in the books. Have a look.
Words to Write By
This week, we’re going back a couple hundred years for a great quote from Jane Austen.
“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on until I am.”
— Jane Austen
My take on this quote is that it’s essentially how to deal with writers block, or more specifically how I deal with it. For me, writer’s block generally manifests in an inability to get started. I sit down at my computer filled with fear and apprehension that I won’t be able to write or what I do write won’t be any good. Not the greatest way to get into a creative headspace. So I do what Jane Austen did: I write through it. It’s not foolproof, but it has allowed me to finish half a dozen novels and hundreds of short stories and flash. What usually happens is the first couple of paragraphs are garbage because I’m forcing the words, and then something will click, usually on the turn of a good sentence or bit of dialogue. Then the words come faster and better, and I can usually hit my word count goal and achieve something good or at least something with potential. So when you’re not in a humor for writing, try to remember what Jane Austen said and keep going.
The Novel
I worked a bit on the revision of Late Risers last week, though I wouldn’t say I made much progress. Part of the problem is I got distracted with another novel that’s about a third of the way done. It’s one I started writing in 2017 and then put on the back burner. That book easily has the best concept of just about anything I’ve written, but the amount of research required to finish it is, well, daunting. So I stopped at about 33,000 words and wrote two other novels instead. I will return to it–I think it’s actually pretty good–but for the moment, I shouldn’t let it distract me from the task at hand. It’s just testament to how much I hate revising, and that I’ll do just about anything, up to an including writing another novel, to avoid it. 🙂
Short Story Submissions
Little bit slow in submission land last week.
- Submissions Sent: 1
- Rejections: 0
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 0
- Shortlist: 0
- Pending: 7
Well, only one submission went out last week. That’s not great, but it does give me five for the month, and I only need four more to hit my quota for January. I just finished a new piece that’ll go out today, so there’s one, and I’m waiting for a couple of markets to open so I can send a few more. I do need to finish/revise more pieces so I’ll have some submission fodder. No rejections last week, though some of the pending subs are getting a little crusty, so I suspect some rejections will arrive soon.
Super Secret Project
More progress was made on this project, and I am definitely getting excited about it. Shouldn’t be long before I can talk about it . . . and then talk about it constantly. 🙂
Goals
Let’s keep it simple: write, submit, revise.
And that was my week. How was yours?
The Complete Picture Part 2: The Gaming Years
In the previous post, I discussed the last nine years of my short story submissions and presented data about the number of submissions, rejections, and so on. A friend of mine (Hi, Jared), however, wondered about the overlap between my short story submissions and my previous career in the gaming industry. It’s an interesting question because between 2012 and 2016 I was publishing in both the gaming industry and the broader speculative fiction market. So, I thought it might be fun to take a look at those years and see what they tell us.
First, lets look at where I published during these years.
| Privateer | RPG | Other | Total | |
| 2012 | 31 | 2 | 0 | 33 |
| 2013 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 14 |
| 2014 | 13 | 0 | 4 | 17 |
| 2015 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 14 |
| 2016 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 18 |
You can see the number of writing credits I had during these years, but let me elaborate on what each category means.
- Privateer: Between the years of 2010 and 2015, I worked for a tabletop gaming company called Privateer Press. From 2010 to 2013, I was the editor-in-chief of their inhouse magazine No Quarter, and from 2013 to 2015, I was the publications manager, overseeing both No Quarter and the inhouse fiction line. Though I formally left the company in 2015, I did some consulting work for them in 2016, so I’ve included that year as well. The material published under this header would be articles for No Quarter, rules material for various gaming supplements, and narrative fiction set in the Iron Kingdoms. You can see my writing credits drop off as my editing duties grew in my new position.
- RPG: This is material I wrote as a freelancer for other gaming companies, primarily Wizards of the Coast. This work was drying up in 2012 for a variety of reasons, and it disappeared completely after 2013.
- Other: These are the flash fiction and short stories I wrote and submitted to outside speculative markets. I didn’t really get serious about it until 2014, and after that it became a big part of my writing endeavors.
Clearly, 2012 was a busy year, and I can’t even recall why. The following table might shed some light on that, though, as it reveals the types of projects I was writing.
| Gaming | Flash | Short | Novella | Novel | |
| 2012 | 28 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| 2013 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 |
| 2014 | 5 | 2 | 9 | 1 | 0 |
| 2015 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 |
| 2016 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 1 |
Like the previous chart, I’ll give you some definitions.
- Gaming: This is material, usually articles for No Quarter magazine, that focused on the gaming world of the Iron kingdoms, the primary setting for Privateer Press. Most of these articles ranged in length between 3,000 and 5,000 words. Many of them definitely had a more fiction-like tone, but they’re still not true narrative fiction. Once I handed over the reins of No Quarter to a new editor, I wrote far less of this type of thing. A few projects under this heading are adventures and articles for Dungeons & Dragons published by Wizards of the Coast.
- Flash: Flash fiction, stories under 1,000 words. You don’t see these show up until 2014, when I started to submit such stories to speculative fiction markets.
- Short: Short stories. Some of this is narrative fiction set in the Iron Kingdoms, but after 2014, they’re also pieces submitted to and published by various speculative fiction markets.
- Novellas/Novels: During this time, these longer works were all narrative fiction set in the Iron Kingdoms and published by Privateer Press.
The number of strictly gaming-related articles I was writing dropped off sharply after 2012, and after that I primarily wrote fiction for Privateer Press. Additionally, those fiction pieces became longer and longer as time went on. The novel in 2016 was my first full-length novel written as a freelance contractor for Privateer Press. Two more would follow in 2017 and 2019.
Those were certainly busy years, and I’ll admit I frequently miss them (and the people I worked with). Opportunities have arisen over the last five years to write more gaming-related material, and while I’ve taken a few of them, my focus now is my own writing. I can tell you that the years I spent with Privateer Press (and with Goodman Games before that) taught me a lot about writing, editing, and publishing, all of which has given me a firm understanding of how publishing works, from the nuts and bolts of putting a book together to marketing said book. I’m very grateful to have had those opportunities.
Obviously, I have not included the years before 2012 when I worked solely in the gaming industry. I think the overlap of what I did then and what I do now is more interesting. That said, my gaming career could be the subject of future posts.
The Complete Picture: Nine Years of Submissions
Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows how much I love stats. From rejections numbers to acceptance percentages, I enjoy diving into the data to see how much I’ve progressed as a writer over the years. Now, normally, I pull these numbers from Duotrope by running Excel reports, doing a little math, and then pulling important data that I often share. Well, Duotrope has a new (I think?) feature that gives you all the basic submissions stats by year, and when I ran it, I realized some of my math has been a little off here and there. 🙂 Not by a lot, but by enough that I’d like to share my true yearly numbers in this post, so here they are.
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Submissions | 6 | 16 | 38 | 46 | 53 | 74 | 120 | 76 | 87 |
| Acceptance Percentage | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.2% | 11.1% | 18.9% | 6.0% | 15.4% | 14.1% | 21.6% |
| Rejection Percentage | 66.7% | 85.7% | 81.6% | 84.4% | 79.2% | 89.6% | 81.3% | 83.3% | 77.3% |
| Non-Response Percentage | 33.3% | 14.3% | 5.3% | 4.4% | 1.9% | 4.5% | 3.3% | 2.6% | 1.1% |
| Accept-to-Reject Ratio | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.9% | 11.6% | 19.2% | 6.3% | 16.0% | 14.5% | 21.8% |
First, some definitions (as I understand them). Submissions is, obviously, the number of submissions I sent in each year. The acceptance percentage is derived from the total number of all submissions, same goes for rejection percentage. Non-response percentage is the number of subs that never responded or were withdrawn. Finally, acceptance-to-rejection ratio is the acceptance percentage with the non-responses removed. The last number is usually how I figure acceptance percentage, but some folks might prefer that number be derived from every submission, even ones that were withdrawn. The only number that is likely to be a bit off here is the number of submissions. That’s because I occasionally submit to markets that are not on Duotrope. Still that accounts for maybe three or four submissions total over the last nine years.
It was really interesting to go back and look at the last nine years of submissions to see how I’ve progressed. I didn’t get serious about submitting my work until 2014, and then things more or less improved each year (either I sent more subs or I got more accepted). Except for the blip in 2017–that was a really strange year–my acceptance percentage has been over ten percent, and in the last three years it’s been closer to fifteen percent. Though I fell short of my 100-submission goal in 2020, the acceptance percentage last year was the real achievement. Twenty-one percent is a great number, and I’d certainly like to repeat it in 2021.
Now lets look at my averages over the last nine years.
| 2012-2020 | 2014-2020 | |
| Submissions | 57 | 71 |
| Acceptance Percentage | 11.1% | 14.3% |
| Rejection Percentage | 81.0% | 82.4% |
| Non-Response Percentage | 7.9% | 3.3% |
| Accept-to-Reject Ratio | 11.5% | 14.8% |
The first set of averages is my true nine-year average. It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of, and all the numbers are respectable enough. The second set, which I consider a truer picture of my submission efforts, starts in 2014 when I got more serious about my writing and my submissions. Those numbers, I believe, are more in line with the writer I am today, but I wanted to present both sets to give as transparent a picture as possible.
So there you have it, the most accurate picture I can paint of my submissions efforts in the last decade. Interesting stuff.
If you use Duotrope and have not discovered this feature yet, here’s how you find it. From the Duotrope home page, click Your Control Panel. About a third of the way down the page, you’ll see this link: See full report of my Submission Statistics. Click it and run reports to your heart’s content. I realize this may be old news to some folks, but I sure as hell missed it for quite some time. 😉
Anyway, if you’d like to share any of your numbers, I’d love to see them in the comments.
Weeks of Writing: 1/1/21 to 1/10/21
Here’s my writing report card for the first week and change of the new year. Let’s take a look.
Words to Write By
I really like this quote from novelist and playwright William Somerset Maugham,
“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
― W. Somerset Maugham
I can go on Twitter right now and find a dozen different posts telling you dozen different ways to write a novel. Some of these posts will even be quite emphatic about how you must write said novel. I too am a lowly sinner, as I have given plenty of novel-writing advice on this blog. Ultimately, if you polled fifty different authors about their novels, you’d get fifty different formulas for writing those novels. That said, I will disagree with William Somerset Maugham on one small point. There is one rule to writing a novel that must be followed. It’s one of the few things every published author has in common. Ready for it? The only rule of novel writing is that you must finish the novel. Every book you’ve ever read required its author, at some point, to push away from their desk and say “done.” Sounds simple, but in my experience, the elusive state of finished holds back more authors than anything else. So, finish what you start. After that, make your own rules.
The Novel
I’ve got two novel in revision right now. Late Risers needs a little more work to be shoppable, and Hell to Play needs, uh, more. My goal for the first month of the year is the get Late Risers finished and ready to shop and Hell to Play through its second full revision. If I pull off just the former, I’ll be happy. Both novels are supernatural thrillers and need roughly the same kind of work, which mostly revolves around pacing. Late Risers needs some of the slow bits streamlined or removed altogether, and Hell to Play actually needs some slow bits added. The first novel drags a bit in the middle chapters, the second is a little too balls to the wall right now. It’s a strange balancing act of giving the reader a breather and boring them with too much standing around and talking. I’m pretty sure I know how to fix both problems, though.
Short Story Submissions
Here are the submission for the last ten days.
- Submissions Sent: 4
- Rejections: 3
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 1
- Shortlist: 0
- Pending: 6
Once again, my submission goal for the year is 100 submissions. If you break that down over a year, it comes out to about eight submissions per month (8.33 if you want to get technical). I’ve sent four in January so far, and I don’t think it’ll be too arduous to send four more. Then I just have to keep up that pace for the next eleven months. 🙂 The three rejections so far this month were all form rejections, so not much to discuss. I did have one publication with The Flame Tree Fiction newsletter, and when that’s available on their site, I’ll share it on the blog. No acceptances so far in 2021, and I’m not in a fantastic position at the moment to get one. My pending submissions aren’t likely to come through in January, and, well, I just need to send more of them. That’ll happen in the next few weeks, which will hopefully make February a good month.
Super Secret Project
Super secret project continues to develop, and I hope to make an announcement in the next couple of weeks. 🙂
Goals
I’d like to get a couple more submissions out this week, but that means I’ll need to revise and/or finish some short stories. I’d also like to make some heavy progress on the final revision of Late Risers.
And that was my week(s). How were yours?
2020 Writing Review Part 4: The Novels
I thought I was done with my writing review posts, but I spoke too soon. I, uh, remembered that the bulk of my writing time in 2020 had not been spent on short stories and their submissions, but on a pair of novels. So, you know, maybe I should talk about that. 🙂
Okay, here are the basic stats on the two novels I worked on last year.
- Late Risers is a supernatural thriller and clocks in it just over 100,000 words. It’s in final revision.
- Hell to Play is also a supernatural thriller (unrelated to Late Risers) and now sits at 91,000 words. It’s in its second full revision.
I wrote Late Risers in 2019, though I did a fair amount of work on it in 2020. I thought it might end up being a trunk novel. Then I let an insightful and trusted critique partner take a look at it, and I have reconsidered. The novel is maybe better than I’d thought. Work needs to be done, but I believe it’s sellable. I wrote Hell to Play in 2020, and the bulk of this post will focus on that novel.
Let’s talk about first drafts. Here’s how Hell to Play came together. WPWD means words per writing day.
- Date Began: 4/13/20
- Date Finished: 7/14/20
- Total Words: 89,188
- WPWD Goal: 2,000
- WPWD Average: 1,897
It took me roughly three months to write the first draft of Hell to Play, and I think that’s a pretty good pace for a novel. On the days I wrote, I averaged pretty close to my goal of 2,000 words. The first draft ended up right around 90,000 words, which, in my opinion, is a solid length for a supernatural thriller. It’ll likely grow a little in revision, but I wouldn’t expect it to eclipse 100,000 words. It was a lot of fun to write, and it’s based on my short story “Scare Tactics,” most recently appeared in Lost Souls an anthology published by Flame Tree Press.
Now let’s talk about revisions. I have undertaken two revisions on Hell to Play, and I’m currently on what I hope is my final revision of Late Risers. As a refresher, here are the steps I take when revising.
- Read and Revise. The first thing I do after I finish a first draft is let it sit a couple weeks. Then I come back to it, read it from start to finish, and fix obvious problems. I also clean up the prose, thought that’s not my primary goal.
- Critique Partners. After I finish my initial revision, I send the novel to my critique partners. I currently have three, and each one of them brings a different perspective and tends to focus on different areas of the novel. Their notes are invaluable in the next steps.
- Second Revision: Based on the notes from my critique partners, I revise the novel. This can be a lengthy task, and I’m currently working on this stage for Hell to Play.
- Polish Prose. After the second revision, I’ll give the draft a fairly thorough proofread and fix up the prose. Luckily, my critique partners are awesome about helping with prose too.
- Agent Review: Once the first draft is polished up, I send the novel to my agent. He invariably has additional feedback, which kicks off another revision.
- Final Revision: Based on my agent’s notes, I revise the novel again, and, well, hopefully that’s the end of it until the novel is sold. I haven’t gotten that far with either of these books, so this is where my list ends.
I believe Late Risers will be in shoppable shape by the end of this month, and Hell to Play should be ready for my agent to review around the same time. Hopefully, March and April will be interesting months. 😉
That’s the basics on my novel-writing in 2020. Not bad, though I’d hoped I would sell one of the novels last year. Obviously, no one in the world expected 2020 to be, well, 2020, so I’m thankful I was able to produce anything at all.
Did you work on a novel in 2020? I’d love to hear about it on the comments.
2020 Writing Review Part 3: Acceptances & Publications
Today we’re getting to the good stuff, and in the third and final part of my 2020 writing review, I’ll cover the acceptances and publications I received last year.
Let’s get to it with some basic numbers.
- Submissions: 87
- Rejection: 68*
- Acceptances: 19*
- Acceptance Percentage: 19.8%/20.9%
The 19 acceptances I received in 2020 ties my yearly best. The reason the rejection and acceptance numbers are starred is because some of them (two acceptances and four rejections) came from stories submitted in 2019, which can change certain numbers, depending on how you look at things. I’ve accounted for that in my overall acceptance percentages. The first number is derived only from submissions and acceptances sent and received in 2020. The second number is derived from acceptances received in 2020 and includes those derived from submissions in 2019. Either way you slice it, I’m pretty happy with this number. Twenty percent is by far the best acceptance percentage I’ve managed in a single year, so, yeah, good stuff.
Okay, now let’s look at the types of markets that were gracious enough to accept one of my stories.
- Pro: 9
- Semi-Pro: 1
- Token: 6
- Contest Wins/Cashes: 3
Although I broke out contest wins and cashes into separate categories, what I was paid for each one would qualify as pro payment. Anyway, the bottom line is that I was paid for 13 of my 19 acceptances, and 12 of those were at a pro rate (as defined by the SFWA and HWA). That’s by far my best year for short stories, and I made enough money that I actually have to claim it on my taxes. 😉
Now the length of stories I sold in 2020
- Flash Fiction: 14
- Short Stories: 3
- Microfiction: 2
No surprises here. I write more flash fiction than anything else, and that means I submit more flash fiction than anything else. My hit rate is also higher with flash, and though I do okay with short stories, flash has been my bread and butter acceptance-wise for more than a few years. So far I have a 100% acceptance rate for microfiction, but that’s based on a grand total of four submissions. 🙂
So those are the acceptance numbers, but what about publications? Well, I had twenty publications in 2020, most of which were for stories and articles I wrote last year. A few, of course, were for stories sold the year prior. I’ll list the 2020 publications that are free to read (or listen to) below.
Flash Fiction
“Second Bite” – MetaStellar – READ
“Fair Pay” – Flash Fiction Magazine – READ
“His Favorite Tune” – Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter – READ
“Childish Things” – The Arcanist – READ
“Stall Number Two” – Ellipsis Zine – READ
“Toward the Sun” – The Molotov Cocktail – READ
“Outdoor Space” – The Arcanist – READ
“Liquid Courage” – The Arcanist – READ
Short Stories
“Reading the Room” – The Overcast – LISTEN
Microfiction
“Dead Bugs” – 50-Word Stories – READ
“Futility Defined” – 50-Word Stories – READ
Articles
“The Quest for the Perfect Publisher” – Dark Matter Magazine – READ
“First Contact: Cover Letters” – Dark Matter Magazine – READ
“Who Are You: The Shot Author Bio” – Dark Matter Magazine – READ
“The Perfect Page: No Fret Formatting” – Dark Matter Magazine – READ
And that’s my acceptances and publications for 2020. That also brings my writing review for the past year to a close. I hope some of it was educational or at least entertaining. I’d love to hear about your writerly triumphs in the past year in the comments.
Effectively Wild – A Baseball Horror Story
Night Walk & Other Dark Paths
Acts of War: Flashpoint
Acts of War: Aftershock
Acts of War: Stormbreak
Aeryn Rudel's Rejectomancy 