Submissions sent last 12 months: 12
Submissions sent this month: 1
Acceptance ratio for the past 12 months: 18.18 %
Congratulations! Your overall acceptance ratio is higher than the average for users who have submitted to the same markets.- my summary from Duotrope.com
Lest you think I left this post to the last minute, I’ll have you know I’ve been collecting links and working on it for a couple weeks now. It’s just that I don’t like to do my *official* end-of-year musing until… the end. And now it’s here. So I can muse with impunity.
Overall, I’d have to say that my writerly year went well. I’m not as far into editing Symbiosis as I’d hoped I would be. What I’d wanted was to be finished. But late in the game I decided on making some pretty big changes to the manuscript. Had I started with an outline or at least a rough idea of where I wanted to go with the story, this might not have happened. But at the beginning, I didn’t *know* where the story would go and I only had the dimmest idea of how to get the point of what I wanted to say across.
It wasn’t until I had written and then rewritten the synopsis a dozen times that I finally figured out what needed to be done. The synopsis was harder than writing the entire first draft! But it feels like a treasure map and I’m glad I did it and glad to be done with it.
My writing year in summary looks a bit like this:
Short stories:
- 12 submissions
- 3 acceptances
- 1 withdrawal
Novel:
- Edited through chapter 24
- wrote synopsis
- started over, began total rewrite and ended year only 25 done/350 estimated total.
It wasn’t until somewhere near the middle of the year when I got the bright idea to develop a sort of business plan for my writing career. My *plan* is still pretty diffuse right now, but even the act of thinking about it has led to making my blog more structured and easier to manage, greater productivity in words written toward short stories and novel wip, general attitude adjustment about making something writerly out of myself. I’m happy with my progress so far.
It’s helped tremendously to have a supportive family behind me this year, whereas in past years I’ve had to fight for my right to write in dignity. No one took me seriously before this year. Two things changed. 1.) One of my son’s friends expressed how cool it is that I write, which gave my son a whole new perspective and peer acceptability for his mom being weird in that way, and 2.) Robert entered my life. A third thing really made a big impact too. My own change in attitude. I began to take myself seriously. Really, without that, I don’t think anything else would have been possible.
Here are my blog page visit totals from the beginning of my blog’s inception:
|
Total |
|
|
2008 |
390 |
|
2009 |
1,701 |
|
2010 |
18,155 |
|
2011 |
20,670 |
Only a little growth from 2010 to 2011, but some of that has to do with blog combing for a specific reason by specific people during 2010. So the numbers for that year are artificially elevated.
But the growth from beginning to present is excellent. You can really see where I started blogging regularly and with a clear direction. That’s also when I started working earnestly on my fiction.
These numbers may be paltry compared to someone with notoriety, but I feel pretty good about them.
When I wake up tomorrow, it’ll be 2012 and on Monday I’ll share my writerly plans for the future with you.
Here’s to a productive and successful 2012 for us all!
Here are some links to earlier end-of-year musing by other writerly sorts. If you have made resolutions and want to share, add your links to the comment section following this post:
Annie Bellet http://overactive.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/goals-for-the-new-year-2012/
Maggie Duncan http://unspywriter.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/resolved-to-write/
Amy Sundberg http://practicalfreespirit.com/2011/12/20/2012-life-lesson-trust-yourself/
Sarah P. Berling http://sarahthestoryteller.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/what-would-you-like-to-read/
Obscure Clearly http://obscureclearly.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/a-year-of/
Wow. I feel so inadequate now. The thing that jumped out at me most about today’s post was your taking yourself seriously. It’s hard to when there are so many naysayers in our worlds. I was once told by someone close to me that they wished I wouldn’t write, because they were afraid I would publish and it would embarrass them, then they’d have to do their shopping at Walmart in the middle of the night to avoid people. Hmm. Thanks for the vote of confidence, huh? Fortunately, the tune of this person changed when I actually did receive the validation of publication. So there you go. Most people need others to tell them what to think about things…don’t you think? Happy New Year!
I guess there are some strong souls who tromp on through with or without validation from anyone else. But we absolutely need it from ourselves to get anywhere. 2010 is also the year I finished the first draft of Symbiosis, so that helped me to feel like a ‘writer’, and it’s the year I began attending meetings with the NWA Writers, and that gave me a tremendous boost in ‘writerlyness’.
But it was like moving a mountain to get that same sense of acceptance from my kids, one of whom actually had at one point asked me to ‘just be normal like other kids moms, please…’. At this point, I was the only parent in the home, the only representation of his family that he had at school and to his peers. That was difficult. I was torn between making him feel less embarrassed by me, or doing what I needed, from the very core of my being to do. And I just sucked it up and informed him that unfortunately, his momma just wasn’t normal and there was nothing I could do about it. LOL. After that it was all much better.
Don’t let anyone else make you feel inadequate. That’s so much easier to say than do, I know. When I look around there are others who are doing so much better than me. And then when I look a little harder I see there are others not doing nearly as well as I am. And then when I look harder still, I see that all of us are grateful for that hand-up every once in a while, because we all need to be validated every once in a while.
This is fantastic, Madison. I agree with Mike – very impressive that you take yourself seriously as a writer. The goals you set and the success in achieving them proves it.
One goal that you may not have set, and may not realize you reached, however, was to inspire other writerly types to work hard to build a platform, and create a structured writing life. Thank you for that!
Thank you Jan
Honestly, I did not set out to inspire anyone to do anything but as I started working on myself (publicly through this blog) and saw that it helped others to feel inspired alongside me, it felt like a good thing to be doing. Now, it has become another symbiotic relationship in my life – when I am not feeling so inspired you and others even without knowing it (and sometimes blatantly) cause me to keep trudging forward, pulling me through my little slump. So in the end, we are inspiring each other and I love that.
I agree with all the comments above! It is an awesome thing to watch a writing friend growing and reaching the goals they set for themselves. It is also an inspiration to those of us who are still struggling to believe in ourselves and continue on with the writing. Good for you my friend. Reach for the stars!
Jeannie, the comments I made above to Jan applies to you too! I’ve met so many people from all over the country and world through this blog and it never ceases to amaze me how supportive we can be to each other. Thank you for being my friends (and if you ever disappear again, I will keep the faith and a candle lit in my heart for your return
)
Well done – and all the best for 2012!
Thanks Tony and Best to you for 2012, too!
That’s a good acceptance ratio!! The page visit numbers aren’t that bad. Higher than mine.
Been a good year for you huh?
Until I saw the number represented in that way, it didn’t feel like a very good ratio. That’s one of the main reasons I love Duotrope. I can look at all sorts of data with their website!
Gotta love Duotrope…except when it drives me crazy, of course!
Congrats on the blog growth–seems like your dedication has really paid off.