Publications!
So my decade review was sorta hopping along until I slammed into 2001, and thought, even apart from the terrorists, how do I sum that up in a paragraph?
So, 2009 writing/publication summary first!
Publication wise, 2009 was a good year. I got to try some experimental writing in various formats - twitter stories for Thaumatrope, Nanoism, and Outshine; and a flash fiction/serial tale in Innsmouth Free Press. I finally managed to get into Farrago's Wainscot and Southern Fried Weirdness only to see both publications close. (I want to assure other editors: I honestly don't kill publications deliberately.) The darker side of fairy tales crawled out in Cabinet des Fees, Ideomancer, and Goblin Fruit.
About that poem: that is one of a set of 22 (or 24) poems that I have called fairynelles - fairy tales retold using the terzanelle format. I adore terzanelles - well, let's face it, if it's a structured poetic form, I love it - villanelle, sestina, paradine, triolet, baroline, pantoum, sonnet, whatever. Six have been published so far, and another four or five are forthcoming in 2010.
Which is lovely, but looking them over reminded me that this is a series that really should be read as just that - a series. (Especially because the Thumbelina one in particular does not work well as a standalone poem.) Which means that one minor goal of 2010 needs to be assembling these as some sort of chapbook, instead of just talking about assembling these as some sort of chapbook. Hmm.
Anyway.
I nearly became a contributing writer at Everyday Weirdness. And yes, Mr. benpayne, someone did, indeed, pick up that sandwich story. I am still blaming you.
As always, reader responses surprised me. A reader favorite was Choking on Red Flowers, a story I still can't remember writing (if my Excel tracking sheet is correct, and it might not be, it was written during a time when I was massively otherwise occupied, but you'd think I'd remember something.) I can't say that I have any strong feelings about it one way or another. Some of you objected to Playing With Spades, or said you didn't get it; others identified it as their favorite story. Others loved The Otter, which I had not expected, since the people who loved this one were the same people who told me to stop creeping them out with last year's The Well. My best reviewed story was, to my genuine surprise, "The Fuddles of Oz," largely because I'd assumed no one but me (and possibly camilealexa) was going to read it, and partly because it was a tale that I pretty much just tossed out.
However, by far the most surprising reader reaction came in response to Gravestones. girliejones nicely summed up everyone's reaction here: "I enjoyed her experimentation with form and the piece made me laugh - that's rare for a punchline to work for me in a short piece.">
:: head on desk ::
Completely not the reaction that I was going for.
It was a salutary reminder that sometimes, what I write - or, more specifically, what I think I write - is not what people actually read. The cheering news here is that "Gravestones" was actually written quite some time ago, so I may have improved somewhat since then. Meanwhile, I'm also glad that everyone at least seems to have liked it. Quite probably more than you would have had I achieved my desired effect.
My own personal favorite, as previously mentioned: Pogo Stick.
Some stats for the curious: Not counting the Cthulhu stories or the Twitter fiction, it took an average of 60 days for my stories/poems to be accepted - although that number is somewhat skewed by "Gravestones" which Hub Fiction spent some time considering. The stories/poems were submitted about 3.3 times, on average, before acceptance, which I think is pretty good. (This number will, however, probably increase in 2010, because I've shifted my focus to pro markets - not a bad thing, but definitely a way to generate more rejection slips.) Most of the editors who accepted me were male, but that number is again skewed by Everyday Weirdness.
*********************
But if publications went well, the actual writing...decidedly didn't. I missed every single one of my not particularly ambitious writing goals this year, goals I'd already lowered to accommodate for illness and other issues. It was particularly distressing since, as I've noted elsewhere, I can and do write quickly - it's just that I had vast periods of not writing at all. Some months were admittedly better than others - my Excel tracking sheet notes that I can be kind to myself for February and December. But other months (hi, June) were just...really not good.
I could list the reasons, but this would just frustrate me further. Time to see what happens in 2010. I have a lot of work to do to catch up with all of you.
But not tonight - I am being summoned for food and other entertainments. Have a marvelous New Year's Eve, all of you. (And for those that already had it, Happy New Year!)
So, 2009 writing/publication summary first!
Publication wise, 2009 was a good year. I got to try some experimental writing in various formats - twitter stories for Thaumatrope, Nanoism, and Outshine; and a flash fiction/serial tale in Innsmouth Free Press. I finally managed to get into Farrago's Wainscot and Southern Fried Weirdness only to see both publications close. (I want to assure other editors: I honestly don't kill publications deliberately.) The darker side of fairy tales crawled out in Cabinet des Fees, Ideomancer, and Goblin Fruit.
About that poem: that is one of a set of 22 (or 24) poems that I have called fairynelles - fairy tales retold using the terzanelle format. I adore terzanelles - well, let's face it, if it's a structured poetic form, I love it - villanelle, sestina, paradine, triolet, baroline, pantoum, sonnet, whatever. Six have been published so far, and another four or five are forthcoming in 2010.
Which is lovely, but looking them over reminded me that this is a series that really should be read as just that - a series. (Especially because the Thumbelina one in particular does not work well as a standalone poem.) Which means that one minor goal of 2010 needs to be assembling these as some sort of chapbook, instead of just talking about assembling these as some sort of chapbook. Hmm.
Anyway.
I nearly became a contributing writer at Everyday Weirdness. And yes, Mr. benpayne, someone did, indeed, pick up that sandwich story. I am still blaming you.
As always, reader responses surprised me. A reader favorite was Choking on Red Flowers, a story I still can't remember writing (if my Excel tracking sheet is correct, and it might not be, it was written during a time when I was massively otherwise occupied, but you'd think I'd remember something.) I can't say that I have any strong feelings about it one way or another. Some of you objected to Playing With Spades, or said you didn't get it; others identified it as their favorite story. Others loved The Otter, which I had not expected, since the people who loved this one were the same people who told me to stop creeping them out with last year's The Well. My best reviewed story was, to my genuine surprise, "The Fuddles of Oz," largely because I'd assumed no one but me (and possibly camilealexa) was going to read it, and partly because it was a tale that I pretty much just tossed out.
However, by far the most surprising reader reaction came in response to Gravestones. girliejones nicely summed up everyone's reaction here: "I enjoyed her experimentation with form and the piece made me laugh - that's rare for a punchline to work for me in a short piece.">
:: head on desk ::
Completely not the reaction that I was going for.
It was a salutary reminder that sometimes, what I write - or, more specifically, what I think I write - is not what people actually read. The cheering news here is that "Gravestones" was actually written quite some time ago, so I may have improved somewhat since then. Meanwhile, I'm also glad that everyone at least seems to have liked it. Quite probably more than you would have had I achieved my desired effect.
My own personal favorite, as previously mentioned: Pogo Stick.
Some stats for the curious: Not counting the Cthulhu stories or the Twitter fiction, it took an average of 60 days for my stories/poems to be accepted - although that number is somewhat skewed by "Gravestones" which Hub Fiction spent some time considering. The stories/poems were submitted about 3.3 times, on average, before acceptance, which I think is pretty good. (This number will, however, probably increase in 2010, because I've shifted my focus to pro markets - not a bad thing, but definitely a way to generate more rejection slips.) Most of the editors who accepted me were male, but that number is again skewed by Everyday Weirdness.
*********************
But if publications went well, the actual writing...decidedly didn't. I missed every single one of my not particularly ambitious writing goals this year, goals I'd already lowered to accommodate for illness and other issues. It was particularly distressing since, as I've noted elsewhere, I can and do write quickly - it's just that I had vast periods of not writing at all. Some months were admittedly better than others - my Excel tracking sheet notes that I can be kind to myself for February and December. But other months (hi, June) were just...really not good.
I could list the reasons, but this would just frustrate me further. Time to see what happens in 2010. I have a lot of work to do to catch up with all of you.
But not tonight - I am being summoned for food and other entertainments. Have a marvelous New Year's Eve, all of you. (And for those that already had it, Happy New Year!)