Sunday, 17 March 2002

I finished the rewrite I'd planned, and posted it to the local group. I'll get the critiques next week.

I also got a story that had been rejected a while ago back out. This one had taken a while, because it's been to most of the major markets now. (It's one of just a couple of pre-Clarion stories that I'm still trying to sell.) I'm not sure what I'll do if it doesn't sell this time. I'm disinclined to sell this one to a second-tier market.

Anyhow, I once again have all my completed stories out to markets.

I've been worrying just a little that I've been writing a lot, but I haven't been getting new stories out to markets. So, I looked back to see what was up, and figured out that it isn't really true.

I think the reason I had that perception was that I pretty much finished my post-Clarion rewrites and got those stories out to markets a while ago. In the meantime, I've written some new stories and gotten them out to my critique groups. But I haven't yet taken any of my post-Clarion stories through the whole process of write, critique, rewrite, submit. So, I had the idea that I must have vast numbers of critiqued stories piling up, waiting for rewrite. It isn't true, though. I just reorganized my "Active" folder, splitting out the stories that have been finished and sent out for critique into their own "Critiqued" folder. The new Critiqued folder has six stories in it, two of which have been sent out for critiques, but haven't actually gotten any yet. So there are really just four ready and waiting for a rewrite.

Since I came back from Clarion with six critiqued stories, and I've been trying to write a new story for each Clarion story I rewrote, the inevitable result is rough steady-state of about six ready for rewrite.

It's also not true that I haven't been getting any of my new stories out. Two of my new stories were small ones that I didn't think would benefit from a critique, so I just started sending them out. (One, "Anger Management," sold to the Why I Hate Aliens anthology. The other's been rejected twice and is now at its third market.)

Next up, though, is clearly a rewrite. I really ought to make a plan. Jim Kelly suggested that we should do our rewrites in order of salability, rewriting the most salable first. That makes sense. I think, though, I'll look over the list and see if there are any that don't need much rewriting, where I could spend just a few days and get a story off to a new market.