This morning, after all the delight of yesterday's 11/11/11 Nerd New Year, I am pausing to take count of things in my writing life. (This, you will recognize immediately, is a delay tactic to avoid 1) dusting 2) laundry 3) a crucial cleaning-out of the giant purse, in which I hope to find that missing slim volume of poetry I am supposed to be reviewing...).
I am right on track in the 1 Year, 100 Rejections project begun on September 1. The aim is to send out enough work to earn 100 rejections, and here in the "first" quarter (Sept., Oct., Nov.) I have sent out 25 packets, and we are only halfway through November, a nice cushion in case of a later slump. I've had 11 rejections since September 1, 2 acceptances, and the rest are still pending. In the meantime, of course, there have been rejections, acceptances, and publication of work sent out earlier--including a couple nice surprises.
Also, as we approach year's end, I am tidying up by officially withdrawing poems from places that have exceeded their usual reporting time, or marking others as "presumed dead" if even the withdrawal process seems not to matter here. In the Accepted folder, awaiting publication, are 15 poems yet to appear in fall, winter, and spring publications. And I'm doing a pretty good job of sending more when a publication says, "Please send more."
Meanwhile, in the blog, hedgehogs still lead the pack, with 80,471 hits on "Hedgehog Hodgepodge." My origami brain still runs second and has no hope of catching up. Posts with picture of bananas and mousetraps are also very popular. And, alas, thanks to the earthquake in Oklahoma, there has been a surge of interest in Tim Hunt's poetry chapbook,
Fault Lines.
And, thanks to genetics, my cholesterol count is still high, so I have to take one statin pill a day, at night, and can no longer eat grapefruit.
OK, the family will wake soon...so I am off to take care of what counts.
12 comments:
Oh! And I have 100 blog followers, a number that delights me!
The Hedge Hogs rule!
I didn't start a formal project to get 100 rejections; however, I recently received two, and also one acceptance. The latter is for a poem that will appear in a book, so that more than makes up for the rejections for the online pubs. Congratulations on your progress.
I must be a number nerd too bc we celebrate with a toast and tarot cards.
Oh, the hedgehogs are soooo cute. I'm sure this post will skyrocket on the ratings.
Big congrats on the submissions & acceptances! Love the idea of shooting for a certain number of rejections as a way to tally up the acceptances. Much more like a game than the ego slamming NO!
And I should clarify again that I did not originate this wonderful tallying project. It is the brainchild of Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, aka The Angry Grammarian!
http://brettejenkins.blogspot.com/
I like your projects! 100 rejections sounds especially fabulous. I've just started submitting stuff again, and am looking forward to getting my first recent rejection soon. I have a further ambition: I'm planning to lose a contest too!
Likewise, Cathy! I'm planning to walk into town right now, on this beautiful fall day, to pay the postage to lose two contests! Sigh... But, really, I want to win them.
I'm going to try for 100 rejections starting in 2012!
So am I, Karen! That is, I'm going to keep the tally going in Brett Elizabeth's project, and then keep a parallel tally starting Jan. 1 and do it henceforth with the calendar year!
What an excellent goal--you go, girl.
You inspire me!
Oh, man, you put me to shame! I am very lazy about sending out, particularly to print magazines. I have a bad tendency to rely on requests for the most part, and then to toss a few things out once in a blue moon.
Okay, enough frittering. Back to page proofs and trying to recover from the Thanksgiving feast.
Ah, Marly, it would be nice to rely on requests!
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