Year in review, sort of
But first -- I made my first pro sale!
This month Daily Science Fiction picked up "Funny Baby," a flash piece I wrote four years ago and revised this year. DSF pays pro rates! So I have my first pro sale. And it sold to the first place I sent it to!
No, I don't know when it will be published yet. I'll link to it when I goes up. Or go over there and subscribe! They send you a flash fiction short story every weekday, it's great!
(Uh, so a professional short story sale is one made to a magazine that pays the current "pro" rate as recognized by the SFWA board, which this writing is 8 cents a word. There are a limited number of markets that pay that well, and an even more limited number that pay more.)
(I note the Horror association has differing levels of membership, and has a non-voting membership open to writers with fewer or "lessor" sales, which seems like a cool idea, but I digress. Twice.)
My first ever short story sale was in 2015, to a ROAR anthology (Volume 6) for a Marciex story (although I guess it's not entirely canon because her name was different then...) Anyway. While remain deeply grateful to the editor who picked it, it was a semi-pro sale, and one needs three pro sales to be able to join SFWA, professional organization for science fiction and fantasy writers.
That's kind of a goal of mine. It's not a "real goal" because it requires behavior on the part of strangers on my behalf (to buy my stuff), but ... it's whatever you call a goal that one can't accomplish alone.
All *I* can do to reach that goal is improve my craft, and that I have been doing.
I'm pretty chuffed that it sold to the first market I sent it to. I have one story I've sent out 15 times and another I've tried on 11 editors. So... either I'm getting better at this, or that one ticked all the right boxes.
Looking at my stats for the year, I made 33 submissions for that one sale. Year before I sent stories out 29 times for zero sales. Made 27 submissions the year before that. That's really a fairly abysmal submission rate; I should keep stories churning all the time. People don't buy air; they have to see your work to purchase it.
I normally have a bunch of stats about what I read and what I wrote and how many hours I spent on revision and all that... but I quit keeping good records sometime this summer, so my stats are shit. 2020 took a huge bite out of my give-a-rip about my own productivity, so ... I got nothing useful.
Right now I have nothing out with the exception of a story sitting with an editor whose market is on hiatus. I have a deadline in seven days so I'm focusing on that manuscript revision. Then I'll send short stories out again. Although ... there are a few Dec. 15 closures so I may take an afternoon this weekend and try to get something to those markets.
I should get off the internets and work on all that!
