Last year was supposed to be the year of submission. And it was in that I submitted some stories, as opposed to previous years when I submitted none. I submitted 5 stories and received 4 rejections. I’m still waiting for a flash piece that’s out.
The attitude I wanted to adopt last year was to shoot for rejections instead of acceptances. Which, I think, is an attempt to trick myself into not tying my self-esteem to a story’s acceptance or rejection. Maybe I’m getting better at that?
I continually believe I can level up, but feel like I need to do a few years of steady attentive work before I get there. And those couple of years are necessarily stretched out even longer since I have a non-writing job that pays the bills and takes up my time. I’m also pretty indolent which doesn’t help my productivity. There’s certainly some excuse-making packed into the sentences above, so I’m working on uprooting the weird fears I have about my creative expression.
This year it might be a little bit before I crank out any short stories or flash fiction. I’m currently working on two longer pieces — a long non-fiction essay on fairies, and a long historical romance set in my fictional world of Abdera, Fl. I’ll do a post about each of those projects during this 100 days of blogging stint. (Oh! I’m also working on a group project for a commercial interest that I’m not sure if I can write about or not. I didn’t sign a NDA, but it seems a little gauche to discuss it without everyone’s permission, and it’s in an unfinished state, so I’ll keep quiet about it until they start publicizing it.)
Associated with this topic I’ll also do posts on writing podcasts, self-improvement books, making and breaking habits, and other places I’ve been looking for insight and solutions.
(100 Days of Blogging: Post 005 of 100)