Green tea

Experimenting with stimulants today. Decided to eschew my usual coffee and just go with green tea to see if I could get a mellower pick-me-up. Surprising me, it seems to have worked. Now contemplating the major life change of swapping my coffee out for tea.

Writing Stuff:
600 new words on the revived story. I think it’s turning into some sort of fantasy mystery/adventure tale. I think. My rein on this baby is loose and frayed. Giddiyap.

Sent a query re: royalty status to the editor of the Asylum anthology series. So far, no word.

Been watching the discussion at Jim Van Pelt’s author topic at the Speculations Rumor Mill about submission volumes per market. To go with it, read with some interest Andrew Burt’s 2003 article on SFreader.com where he asked various editors what their average monthly submission numbers were.

According to Andrew’s article, the numbers range from 850 per month (Asimov’s) for the top markets to as little as a mere handful for the smaller ones (25-50 for Oceans of the Mind).

Of course, whether or not a writer sells to a market isn’t a numbers game. Editors don’t randomly reach into their slush pile and pluck out a story to publish. The numbers do give a bit of an idea of how much competition one’s little story is facing. But in the end, publication success comes down to keeping at it–writing, submitting, and then more writing. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Or, as Jim Van Pelt so much more articulately puts it:
“ . . . success in writing comes from perseverance. Perseverance in learning how to tell the stories you have within you to tell, and then perseverance in marketing. Most people don’t persevere. Writing a story is beyond most folks. Actually getting up the nerve to find out where to mail it and then putting it into the mail is beyond many of the folk who write a story. Sticking with it after the first rejections is beyond many more.

“Staying with it long enough to sell work, and then to sell it consistently, really is the writers’ version of making the Olympics.“