April Stat Check

During the month of April, I wrote on 24 of the days (can I get a WooHoo??!!)
I finished my mystery story, rewrote two science fiction stories, and started research on a new science fiction piece
I sent 2 submissions
I received 3 rejections--two on the same day! :(
I retired one story
I have 7 stories currently in slush pile circulation
I took between 5 and 7 days to resubmit a story after a rejection
I made 13 blog posts
Between writing, this blog, and Critters, I took no days off! (can I get another WooHoo??!!!)

Analysis
This is, by far, my best month since I started documenting on this blog.  I've been able to keep myself busy and motivated, which is a very good thing.  This time my biggest antagonists were a character who woundn't make up her mind, the time committment of networking (though the Ultimate Blog Party was quite helpful, regardless), fighting a losing battle against the must-stay-up-late-to-get-everything-done monster, a slow computer, and a new computer with (I think) battling virus programs and firewalls--if not for which I would have written on two more days, ppbth!  I'll probably blog profusely about the last, hopefully after the problem is solved.

The story I retired is a piece of flash fiction I wrote several years ago and was never quite happy with.  It started with an idea I thought was funny (or interesting, at least) but perhaps I should've known it wasn't the greatest idea when it took me forever to even figure out how to start.  I just couldn't crack into it.  Once I finally did, I was (moderately) satisfied with the then-finished result, but it sat on my computer for a few years.

When I broke it out and revised it, I began to feel that I wasn't happy with the piece in general.  It felt, to me, more like something I would receive as a viral email forward rather than a story (and although it occurred to me to try, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of spreading a viral email--especially not with that topic.)  But still, it felt counterintuitive to me NOT to try to get it published, so I sent it to a handful of flash fiction markets.  And their responses verified my instincts.  I received a few editoral comments, including "Didactic and long-winded," "This doesn't read as a story; this reads as a business plan," and "This doesn't feel like a story. It feels like I'm reading an e-mail forward."  How about that?  Somehow I managed to make an email forward business plan that was long-winded, all in under 800 words!

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't really want this piece out in the literary world with my name attached to it, so I made the decision to retire it.  "No Regrets," may you rest in peace.

My goals for May are to have a similar month to April.  I'd like to write (or do research) on most days, get between 10 and 15 blog posts, network for my blog (hopefully on most days as well, I have more of a plan for that now) and keep up with a critique a week on Critters.  I'm even entertaining the idea of trying to write ten critiques in one week in order to advance my next story to the top of the queue--we'll see how that goes.  I wish everybody else a successful May as well!