Update Aug 4

A few things here this time:

First of all Dean Wesley smith and wife are having online workshops now...more here http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=7470 .  I want to take the Cliffhanger, the Pitches & Blurbs and Essentials of A Fiction writing Career. I might be able to take two of them if I can get to reserving a spot or two.


Today I sent in number seven to Fantasy and Science Fiction. That is seventh in a row. Years ago I would send in five to eleven in a row. But it's been a few years since I've done that. This time around Stephen Mazur seems to be reading them all. It used to be Lisa Rogers who read most of my stories--wonder if she quit. Of course all have been rejections. I seemed to have moved up one title level, from "Couldn't grab my attention" to "Couldn't Keep my attention" but that was after a bunch of help from various people. I can't even get that far on my own anymore. Stephen has been spending up, maybe he knows my writing by now therefore knows what to expect so he it doesn't take him as long.


Time to send something to Analog and IGMS as well as a few others. Most of those have decreased the time it takes for them to respond. IGM cut off about half. It took them only one month and four days to reject my story. Asimovs though is still out.


Worked hard last weekend and finished a story for a certain market whose deadline was the First of Aug. Got it done in time to revise it a bit but turned out to be 700 words too long. So decided to rush another story through my typing fingers for another market deadline the 31st of July. I had most of the story in my mind and it would be short so I hand wrote half out at work on the 31st. I managed to get more computer time so I finished it that night..1700 plus words. Spell checked it, proofread it(a software) and tried to find the market. Emphases on Tried. Couldn't find it...ugg. So it was late so after half and hour I gave up and went to bed. That is the story I sent to F&SF today. I revised it and added three hundred or so words. It's a bit better now. Next week I send in that other longer story. And since I'm nearing 1,000 rejections with only one almost sell and one comment to show that's it.  I have to do a complete count so I might be wrong but I counted 920 and some rejections. 923 and some now, so it's possible I will reach 1,000 by the time I get Q1-13's rejection.

And that is only that batch, I don't count the batch for Strange New Worlds. But that is another 30 to 35 rejections even though it had one sell, a good enough to sell and one almost. If I get the same statistics for the 1,000 That will be enough.