Hello there!

It’s been a month since I last tracked my submission stats in the middle of June, so let’s have a look where we stand on the acceptance/rejection meter. It’s been a bit of a slow month with only a handful of acceptances, but as soon as I finish story 77 I am going to begin sending out stories again, including re-submitting to places that said No the first time. I shall double check the rejection letters in case they said anything nice about me… Also, I shall be retiring a couple of stories that have been rejected and rejected again. I may post them here on the blog and talk about why they didn’t work, or maybe why they should have worked.

So, as of 21 July, my submission stats are as follows:

145 active submissions. (Once again, this is work that is still under consideration. There are still submissions from April that I have not heard from – 74 to be exact – so it may be peevish follow-up email time for them.)

109 NO! Gosh. That century snuck up on me. Didn’t realise I’d gotten so many! But a fair few did say try again. I can’t say how many– I should have put that on my lovely excel document that tracks all this. I shall in future.

22 YES! (24 stories in total, of which 7 have now appeared both online and in print. Have a look at my Publications for details.)

I also have 50 resubmits- journals that I have had to withdraw work from as it has been published elsewhere. There are probably journals that have had five or six stories withdrawn from them at this stage. I am a tease.

There are currently 38 stories doing the rounds. Like I said above I shall probably retire a fewof them from active submission since they are simply not pulling their weight. (Look ashamed, I Arrive and I Fail to Escape.)

Finally, there are 44 journals that I am keeping my eye on- they are currently closed to submissions but as soon as they are open I am going to jam them filthy with nuggets of prose.

So that’s where things stand at the moment. I am going to work hard at turning at least some of those 109 NOs into acceptances and try sending out some of the new work I’ve completed in the last month. I have two goals – to have written 100 stories by Christmas (current total 76-and-a-half) and to have 50 acceptances by the same date (current total 24) I believe in myself!

Okay kids, as you were.

Graham