Publishing, Etc.

On the eve of Kyle Minor day here at "All I Have in the World," I received news that a story of mine was accepted at juked. I'm quite stoked, as I love the stuff they post over there, particularly "My Robot" by Claudia Smith and "only bastard in town who prefers brunettes" by Elizabeth Ellen and "Aching Hours" by Douglas Light. For now, if you haven't already read those stories, go check them out; I'll let you know when my story becomes available.

And on a related note: Though I write here every now and then about what I'm writing and reading, I tend to avoid writing about the whole business side of writing: submitting stories for publication. For those of you who may be interested, I have, I think, ten story-type-things (some are very short--300 words or so--and some are longer--more like 5,000 words or so) under consideration for publication at various magazines, contests, and anthologies. I keep pretty thorough records of all this, both in a MS Word document and over at Duotrope's Digest, which is an excellent resource for writers and has become a minor obsession of mine--seriously, I think I'm going to have to donate some money to them once I get paid in October.

Ten minutes ago, I did a brief sweep of both my Word doc and Duotrope to see how many rejections I've received for those ten story-type-things since I received my last acceptance for a story-type-thing. This was an odd thing to do for me, as I tend to focus my attention more on where I have things out currently, and where I plan on sending more stuff than I do on those lines in the Word doc that say "dumbass form rejection" or "nice, handwritten letter encouraging me to submit again" or "maybe I forgot to include an SASE?"

So, my last acceptance was received on May 25, 2006, just over three months ago. For some reason, three months seems to be the average "drought" period for me between acceptances. In fact, I published my first story in November 2003, and this most recent publication will mark the ninth appearance of my work either in print or online. *doing math in my head* *getting out a piece of scratch paper, because the whole math-in-my-head thing isn't working* Okay, that's thirty-four months, nine stories, which averages out to a story every 3 1/2 months or so. Dang, and here I thought I was just making stuff up when I said that thing about three months being the average "drought" period.

Anyway. All this build-up...I should just type down the number already. How many rejections has Chad received since May 25, 2006? (Did I just write about myself in third-person? I did. Or Chad did. Please forgive me/him.)

*quiet drum roll*

*getting even quieter, and slower, more like a resting hearbeat really than someone playing the drums*

Twenty-three rejections, for eight of the ten story-type-things I have in circulation.

I feel so naked right now.

In order to end an a less-exposed note: Big thanks to those of you who sent Kyle or me comments about the interview I posted yesterday. And much thanks to Kyle for agreeing to participate in the whole thing. I had a blast--and I absolutely love that essay of his. If you're in a bookstore sometime soon, spend the $13.00 on the anthology. Seriously, his essay alone is worth the price, and I'm guessing, based on his effort, that the editors filled the thing with plenty of other excellent stuff too.