Welcome to the blog of science fiction author Eileen Rhoadarmer--where science fiction and Mommyhood collide!


Saturday, July 3, 2010

Ah, Sleep, I will welcome your return. Oh, and June Stat Check

During the month of June, I wrote on 23 of the days (not bad considering there was a vacation in there)
I completed the first draft of a new story, started (but didn't finish) a rewrite of my first Critters story The French Maid, sorted through the critiques I got from my second Critters story Pandora's Time, and started revising Pandora's Time.
I made 1 submission
I received 3 rejections
I have 7 stories currently in slush pile circulation (well, technically it's 4 right now, but they're going back out in the next few days)
I only took 1 day to resubmit a story after a rejection early in the month, but then I had two rejections during crunch time, which are still waiting for resubmission at 12 and 5 days, respectively (for shame, for shame)
I made 9 blog posts
Between writing, this blog, and Critters, I took 4 days off (technically 5, since I planned some posts ahead of time before vacation)

Analysis
Pandora's Time is the reason I have been depriving myself of sleep.  It's not unusual for me to go to bed late, but not as late as I've been doing for the last week.  The deadline for the anthology is tomorrow, and once I realized how close that was I worked like mad to figure it out.  I wound up switching back to its original ending (I had modified the ending for Critters, and based on some comments decided to go back,) plus I tightened/cleaned it up and tried to address a few reader concerns.  At any rate, it's done with a day to spare.  In case anyone is wondering what I did about the dilemma I blogged about here, I went ahead and sent the story to Times of Trouble despite being over their word count.  In my cover letter I told them it was a bit longer than they called for, but I hoped they would do me the courtesy of starting to read it, just like they would with any other submission.  I really do feel like it's a good fit, and I had a lot of positive responses from Critter folk who said they didn't want to put it down, so I'm hoping the editor will feel the same when he reads through it.
 
I feel pretty satisfied with my progress this month.  I stalled a bit while rewriting The French Maid--that story has given me more trouble than any other I've written.  I don't want to abandon it, but I keep getting stuck with how to proceed.  This one will definitely need a second round of Critters once I get a complete draft again (I think I'm on draft 9 since I first created it.)
 
I even managed a little networking this month.  Not much, but more than I've done in May or April.
 
My goals for July are to finish rewriting The (danged) French Maid, do a second draft of my most recently finished story so I can send it to Critters, find some people to critique my mystery story (which is the wrong genre for Critters,) start a new time-travel story I had an idea for (thanks Dad,) and check out (and possibly participate in) a shared-universe story collection I've been invited to.  My blogging goals remain the same:  10-15 posts, and more networking.
 
Happy Independence Day, everybody!  (Unless you're not in the U.S.--in that case, just have a good July!)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of the nine or so stories I've been circulating since late March, one stuck to the wall on the sixth of July.

= I have a first sale!

--Brian.

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who finds the grey background and black text a little tough to read?

--Brian.

P.S. how hard is this Blogspot business? I mean, now that I've got something to (in the near future) point people at and say buy, buy, buy...

Eileen Rhoadarmer said...

Congrats Brian! That's terrific news. I'm rather partial to July 6th myself, seeing as it's my wedding anniversary. :)

Nobody's ever mentioned having trouble reading before, perhaps I should take a survey (ease of reading is rather important, after all.) Anybody else care to weigh in?

Blogging is easy--making time to keep up with it and network in order to get traffic, that's harder. I'll send you a NaNo mail.

Congrats again!