Results for Month 2 of the Publishing Gauntlet:

• Words Finished: 7050/12000
• Stories Written: 4 (3 Short Stories, 1 Micro)
• Submissions: 19/25
• Acceptances: 0
• Pages Read: 1100/2600
• Crits Done: 10+

October was a pretty bad month for various reasons:

• I got sick twice, with flu-like symptoms, and was down for ~ten days with very minimal writing and less reading than usual.
• More importantly, I got a bit burned out by all the rejections. To be honest, I was expecting at least one or two acceptances at this point. But this month, my only results were: two stories got shortlisted and eventually rejected. Several others made it to second rounds, but not as far as shortlisting (I think), but were also rejected in the end. It could be variance, it could be a result of submitting too widely and not strategically enough, but the end result is to make me feel like a fraud…

It feels like the Clarion honeymoon phase is over, and it’s back to business as usual. At Clarion people are all telling you how awesome you are, how much potential you have a writer, how you’re basically a professional, etc. etc. But here in the real world nobody is trying to be nice to you. Editors send form rejections. One even sent feedback that just, essentially, said, “This story is boring and there’s nothing good about it.”

So yea. Depressing.

Anyway there’s not much I can do except keep working at it. Some adjustments to make for the next month:

• I think setting word count goals isn’t good for me because I do feel like I’m compromising in order to finish stories. I’ll probably keep track of word count but not set word count goals. I will set ass-in-chair time goals, though.
• I feel like I’m writing too much to try and please editors and not enough for myself
  • This is a result of wanting publication too badly, I think. So I’ll revise my expectations downward and reframe this year as a year of learning.
  • The above also helps because part of me just feels like I’m missing some key skills and that I need to focus more on craft and not so much on getting stories accepted.
• I think putting aside work/income generation to focus on writing probably puts me under a lot of stress, which leads to long-term burnout. So I’ll focus more on other business ventures/free lancing type stuff as well during my non-writing time.

That’s all. Will check in after another month.