Whew! 2014 was a super-fun but crazy ride, especially the last few weeks of it. Lots of family responsibilities, holiday celebrations, and general gearing up for 2015.
As promised, I wanted to share with you guys the results of my Write1Sub1 challenge, I started in February 2014. As a quick recap, here’s my original post detailing the rules for the challenge.
The numbers:
Written: 29 pieces
- 14 short stories (1,000 words or more)
- 4 flash stories (<1,000 words)
- 4 creative non-fiction
- 3 twitter fics
- 3 poems
- 1 other (column submission)
Submissions: 94
Publications: 5 (3 stories, 1 CNF, 1 poem)
Success: 5.32%
Analysis:
As you can see, I really tried to branch out of my comfort zone this year. I’d never really tried seriously writing creative non-fiction before, so I’m still finding my own particular style there. Also, learning to condense and create complete stories that are less than 1,000 words (and in the case of twitter fics, less than 140 characters) proved a HUGE challenge for me. I find my comfort level is between 1,000 and 3,000 words. Any less and I end up creating scenes masquerading as stories. Any more, and I start writing a lot of filler material or the story becomes unfocused and confusing. On the other hand, all my novels are gargantuan, and I’m having a hard time cutting a lot of excessive material. What can I say, I’m a girl of extremes. Also, I’ve really enjoyed writing poetry this year. I find it refreshes my mind, because editing poetry is hugely different from editing stories for me.
I didn’t quite make the “Write1” part of it. Part of it is that I refused to count pieces that are half-written. I have lots of half-formed ideas I hope will be fleshed out in 2015, and they’ll contribute to the count then. Also, I’m not surprised that there’s so many more submissions than written pieces. I can submit a piece multiple times, but I can only write it once. The thing about submitting more, though, is that one receives a proportionately-sized amount of rejections along with it. However, I’m quite proud of my success rate (Frankly, I thought it would’ve been lower). Plus, I had more pieces published this year than the two years before combined. I’m hoping this trend holds steady in the next few years.
I decided that I’m going to try the challenge again. I’ll let you know the results next year!
Happy (belated) New Years! Hope 2015 is filled with fun, adventure, blessings, and lots of love!