April/May 2017 Progress Report

This year is going by way too fast, but it’s still been a great year so far. April and May were both pretty good months for me on the writing side as well. I’ve mentioned this stuff before, but I had my first solo author talk, my first reading at an author fair, attended another writing conference, and of course, survived getting hit by a car while crossing the street on my way to be a panelist at a sci-fi convention.

So I guess it’s also been an interesting month. Onto the progress report…

Short Stories

I started out the year vowing to finish a new short story every month. We’ll here we are in June and I’ve finished exactly ONE. But I did start working on a short story a few days ago, so maybe I can at least eight for the year. We shall see.

As for my submission stats,

• Number of submissions: 9
• Number of rejections: 5 (1 personal, 4 form letters)
• Number of acceptances: 0
• Number still pending: 8

Rejections don’t usually bother me, but there was one this month that did, only because I really thought my story was a perfect fit for the publication. Oh well. All one can do is accept the lack of acceptance and resubmit.

Theme of Absence

We’re still going strong at Theme of Absence. I have no real new to announce, other than to update where I’m at with submission. In April/May I received 42 submissions and published eight new stories. I’m still a little behind on the reading queue, with 32 number of stories pending. The overall accept rate is hovering at 26%. If you’re looking for token paying market and have a short story under 3000 words, you should certainly give us a try.

Works-in-progress

Again, here’s where I get wishy-washy. I KNOW that the best thing I could do for my writing career is to start querying another novel. And to do that, I either need to finish another novel, or finish revising the YA fantasy manuscript I have that has been sitting around in revision hell for several years.

But dang it, I need to have the psychological boost of finishing something now. So I’m working on a few short stories randomly chosen from my WIP folder.

Upcoming events

Due to a family commitment, I had to pull out of the Papillion Book Festival this month. But I’ll still be signing books, and possibly speaking or reading at  few more events this summer.

I’ll have a table at the Nebraska Book Festival (Union Plaza, 21 W Q St, Lincoln, NE) on July 15 and will be involved with York Fest in York, NE September 9.

Goals for June/July

This is tricky because I need to make up my mind on what I want to do. For now, I want to commit short stories for a bit, so I’ll start with that. Pending on how many I finish, and how many I get published, I may give in and start working on a novel again. Or maybe I’ll say forget it and dedicate the rest of the year to short stories and then make 2018 the year of the novel. Who knows? We’ll see how I feel in a few months.

But that’s it. They only other goals I have are to stay on track with this site, Theme of Absence, and the podcast.

So that’s it for May. Check back tomorrow for another Five Links Friday posting, and if you’ve got some goals or accomplishments to share go ahead and leave a comment!