An yes, I know I need to get back to updating this!

But this year I had 3 stories go out and go over 200 days. One, the longest, I emailed inquiring if it was still under consideration, and received a quick reply letting me know it was. So, even though it is still going a long time, I’m not worried about it, as I know it isn’t lost.

The other two however, have me a wee bit irked, only because I don’t like marking assumed rejections, even when I feel they must be. Both I emailed over a month ago to inquire about, and neither responded. One I hadn’t received a conformation email for submitting, so at 200 days I reluctantly marked it AR. The other one I did receive a conformation email, but no response to the inquiry email. Tomorrow that one will be at 200 days as well, and I will probably mark it as an AR, but it irks me more than a rejection does. (I’m used to those.)

So this year so far, I have submitted two pieces, and already received a rejection for one. Go new year!

“Tumbleweeds and Highways” was published in Clean Sheets.

“Web of Death” was published in MicroHorror.

I also finished the month on 100 Words which you can read at Val Gryphin’s December Batch.

Go check them out and if you have any comments feel free to leave them for me.

Go! Shoo! Then you can come back and read my stats!

Now, where were we. Ah yes.

In the year 2008, (According to my lovely Duotrope) I had 74 new submissions to 57 different markets, on 17 different pieces, with 11 submissions still out for consideration.

Of those 63 completed submissions I had 48 rejections:

• * 1 assumed rejection
• * 7 personal rejections
• * 40 form rejections

I also:

• * had 1 rewrite request
• * withdrew 7 submissions

And, (the best part) I received 7 acceptances, of which 3 have gone to print.

Other interesting facts:

• * the shortest response time was 0 days
• * the longest one is still out at 216 days
• * the next is an assumed rejection at 200 days (yes, I had emailed to check on it.)
• * the longest actual rejection was 189 days
• * of the acceptances, I had one that was 0 days and one that was 127
• * the piece that went out the most went out 13 times so far (and still not accepted!)

Overall I consider it a very successful year. I met agents and learned more about the business at a writer’s conference, and developed an elevator pitch I was able to give to an agent I respected. I was also requested to send the first 100 pages of my novel, which, even though it was rejected, was a great experience. I completed both NaNoWriMo and a month of 100 Words. I did a hard revision on Moving on Nightfall and am 2/3rds of the way through my second novel.

Yes, overall, it very good writing year.

I iz happy heh. The new wordpress kicks ass, and the new upgrade feature built in will make future upgrades much easier.

Now that that is taken care of, I will try and get stuff posted here more often. I am still doing 100 Words, and I designed a new shirt for shirt.woot, which I will try to post tomorrow.

For now, here is my 100 Words entry for 12/25/08

Carefully she made her way down the stairs. They were getting harder to see, so even though she knew their shape by heart, she had to strain to make out any possible obstructions that might be in her way. Such as a wet, slippery leaf, a sock dropped by a neighbor coming back from doing laundry, or the stray cat that hung out on the steps. She liked the cat actually, she had been feeding it for about a year and a half. But now she always worried that she might trip over it as she made her way down.

Haven’t worked on either novel, because of my schedule, but I haven’t been totally non-creative. Last week between my daughter and I we made ten different batches of cookies. Wouldn’t think all that cookie baking would be a lot of work, but it is. Plus it makes me move slower than normal lol.

I have been a Woot.com fanatic for years. Woot is a daily deal site where at midnight central time (I’m in eastern, d’oh!) they put up an item for sale for 24 hours for a great price. Now, not too long back, they started a spin-off site called shirt.woot.com (there is also sellout.woot.com, and wine.woot.com, but we’re not going to go into them.) Shirt.woot features a new t-shirt design every day of the week, and three of those designs are the top three vote getters in their weekly competition called a “Derby.” That’s where the designers post their concept ideas for t-shirts and the Woot community votes on which they like. And yes, if you are one of the lucky three top ones, you do get paid $$$ for your design.

I’d been following the site for a while, but been a little more serious about it for a few weeks. I have been following the derbies, and tempted to try them. Now, as I said before, I consider myself a writer first, and an artist second, but I have been trying to bump up my art. I kept wanting to try, but kept holding back because of a) slight intimidation, and b) the damn wrist. I can’t hold a pencil for long enough to do a detailed drawing fast right now. (They announce the theme on Thursday, and open for submissions from Friday to Thurs, but if your submission isn’t in the first two days it’s got a really hard hill to make it to the top.) But this week’s theme was neat (doing the design in one unbroken line, so I decided to give it a try. (Click if you are a Woot member and want to vote for me!)

it’s not what I would call perfect by any means, but I did it and that is what matters. I had done some concept sketches Friday, my daughter cut her foot last night and wiped out any chance I might have had to work on it yesterday after work, but today I did it. I sketched it in pencil, then drew it with my micron pens. Scanned it in and worked on it in paint shop pro. I’m ok with how it turned out actually.

It’s titled “It’s Not Lost” and the caption is (and yes it sucks, but I was brain dead by that time):

As the world advances, and we become physically synthetic, what will we retain of our humanity?

I have a new DigiPro tablet (that I got from Woot actually!) that I haven’t broken out and used yet, but I think I will shortly. I may not do shirt.woot every week, but it is along the same kind of exercises as NaNoWriMo - it forces me to do it, and not obsess too much over getting it “just right.”

Now tomorrow I must upgrade my site to Wordpress 2.7 *sigh*

100 Words is going well. It is a very different writing set of muscles to use than for NaNo, but I am enjoying it. I’m looking at each one as being a short story or clip of 100 words, and I’m actually coming up with some decent stuff.

I’m posting the entry for 12/6/08, below, but I’m testing making it so the fiction won’t show on the RSS feed. So, you’ll have to click on the post title to come here and read it on the site. This may change , I’m experimenting with it right now. Let me know if you hate it.

Did my 100 Words today.

I am starting 100 words, and I think it will be a really good thing for me. While I am finishing my NaNo. heh. Here’s today’s.

100 Words

She thought that the sensation of the migraine was like someone taking tweezers, and slowly pulling out the veins in her head, one by one, like someone pulling out unneeded threads from an old sweater. If she lay very, very, still, she could almost hear each one as it snapped off, leaving her face without a scaffolding. She thought about how her face would look, slowly crumpling under the weight of her skin, without anything to keep it up, kind of like one of those dried apple face dolls that sat on the shelf behind her dead grandmother’s kitchen sink.