MAY

May has not been a bad month for me.

One acceptance - I suppose I could call that only one acceptance, but I'm happy that I got one. My productivity during April and May is quite low but at least it's a million times better than before.

For example:

May 2008 : 5 submissions so far (and I'd love to get a 6th on in by the weekend). 2 new, 3 re-submissions. 2 rejections and 1 acceptance.

April 2008: 7 submissions. 1 was a re-submission. 3 acceptances. 3 rejections.

February 2008: 1 submission - which was accepted in March.

January 2008: 1 submission (subsequently rejected).

Prior to 2008: 4 short stories submitted (plus 1 book submitted many times!).

I have spent a lot of time recently either studying or applying for jobs. I would love to think that I could continue with 1 submission a week. More would be better but I have to stay realistic here! Of course, I would like 1 new submission every week!

At the moment I have a 40% acceptance rating with Duotrope - which, they tell me, is higher than average for all users of their website over the last 12 months - I'd like to keep that level!

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF BOOKS

Every year it seems to get more and more difficult to break into the publishing world (unless, perhaps you're a celebrity).

Now however unpublished authors have a chance to get into print and promote some chapbooks, both theirs and their fellow unpublished authors, on July 27th.

This is the brainchild of Iseult Murphy, who also offers assistance to would-be published authors with both artwork and editorial help (Sounds like a lot of work). Check out the International Day of Books website for more details.

Although in its inaugural year, I can see this taking off big time in the next few years.

ANOTHER ACCEPTANCE

Apollo's Lyre - that wonderful publication - has accepted my micro-fiction tale "Last". It will appear in their August edition.

This magazine, an award winning site, incidentally, earlier this year showed great taste by accepting Inkpot's brilliant tale "The Sky Horse", which will be in the May edition.

At this point, Inkpot and I share three publications - Alienskin, Necrotic Tissue and now Apollo's Lyre!

DEALING WITH REJECTION

Rejection is always very hard to take. If you receive feedback at the same time, that's great. Otherwise it's hard to know why the story was rejected - useless story or blind editor? I thought this was a good analysis of why stories get rejected.

The reason i mention this is - yes, rejected again (but speedily). In one way, I'm not surprised - I like the story but maybe it needs more polish. Perhaps the main character isn't likable (or dislikable) enough. I will re-read and amend before I send out again.

A couple of weeks ago my % acceptance in Duotrope was 75% - now it's 37.5%!!

Perseverance is key to success, I think.

MAY OBJECTIVES

It would be great if may proved to be as successful writing-wise as April. I don't just mean in terms of work being accepted or published: I'm talking as much - if not, more - in terms of volume of writing.

I was quite pleased with how the month started - I made the deadline for an anthology, although I was not very happy with my submission. Neither were the editors - who promptly (but nicely) rejected it.

The necessity of gaining employment this month is looming very large so my time spent on writing will be severly limited. Despite this, I want to write and submit a short story every week, and also to finish my chapbook this month (or first draft of it).

I hope this strikes the right level of ambition - within reach but requiring me to exert myself.

Time will tell!