Next Year, Work Harder

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." STEPHEN KING

Welcome to my end of year post! It might make for sobering reading, but I hope you won't mind that. Some of you might well need the kick up the arse I'm about to give you. You're welcome!

As anyone I've ever bored on to about writing knows, I'm a firm believer in discipline and hard work. Go to work every day, put the hours in, get a system together for submissions. I'm not rich (and probably never will be - HURRAY!) but all the same, I consider myself a success on my own terms. Success in my mind being: a writer who writes the way she wants to, and gets her work published pretty regularly. Your definition of success is probably different, but there is mine, and I'm sticking to it.

Below, I detail what I've been up to this year, in numbers.

Work

Number of hours spent writing: 450 (approx)
Number of hours spent submitting: 16 (approx)

Submissions

Number of submissions made: between 48 & 52 (approx)
Number of short stories published: 5: 3 print, 2 web

Most number of times a story was rejected before finding a home: 18 (approx)
Fewest number of times a story was rejected before finding a home: 1
Number of times a story got accepted the first time I sent it out: 0

The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times

Low point: receiving 4 rejections for the same story within the space of 2 days.
High points: seeing my words handset in a letterpress book made by a friend; having my novel accepted at Cinder House & Dead Ink Books.

In Summary:

You won't get anywhere if you sit around feeling sorry for yourself.