Monthly Tally for August
Here are my monthly stats for August:
- 7,600 new words of fiction written this month. 1
- 19 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time)
- 4 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft.
- 3 second drafts currently in progress
- 1 second draft currently in the hands of "trusted readers."
- 4 third drafts currently in progress.
- 1 third draft currently awaiting polishing. 2
- 0 fourth drafts in currently in progress.
- 1 rewrite (at request of editor) currently in progress.
- 10 stories currently submitted to markets
- 1,400 words in shortest story currently submitted.
- 8,700 words in longest story currently submitted.
- 0 offers of publication received this month.
- Longest current wait without response: 298 days.3
1 Not spectacular, but when you consider that I wrote nothing at all between August 7 and August 27, it looks better. The first week I was writing my last story for Clarion. The last week I was revising my first story for our new crit group.
2This story is also "in the hands of trusted readers," but it's definitely a third (or even fourth?) draft, rather than a second.
3 You'll note that the previous winner, the story that was out for more than 460 days, is off the list. That was the Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest, which I didn't win. Bless them, they had three times as many entries as they expected, and all their judges were squeezing in the work in their spare time.