Writing Accountancy

This post is mostly for my own benefit. In July 2007, I decided to focus on becoming a writer. I first tried to become a writer between the ages of 16-24. I was pretty half-assed at the time, completing only a handful of poems, stories, and scripts. For the next eight years, life took over. I worked and cared for Caitlin and threw myself into my advocacy work. By 2007, I was burning out. Also, Lynne and I were attending SF conventions for her Rare Books' job. After meeting some writers and going to numerous writing panels, I realized that I wanted to write again.

The seeds were especially planted during a Worldbuilding panel at Odd Con. After hearing Joan Vinge, Pat Rothfuss, E.E. Knight, and Sarah Monette talk about their processes, I resurrected some old ideas of my own. Three months later, I started writing a novel.

So, what have I accomplished in the last 40 months?

1 post-apocalyptic coming-of-age fantasy novel (100,000 words, 2 revisions)
1 mid-grade fantasy novel (50,000 words)
9 short stories (40,000 words, numerous revisions)
Abandoned starts (10,000 words)

Total- about 200,000 words of fiction. That's an average of 5000 words a month.

As you can see, I'm not a very fast writer. Still, not too shabby considering I'm still Cailin's full-time caregiver and I lost both of my grandparents during that time period. Plus, I'm not including all of my nonfiction work. That's easily another 100,000 words of writing and 1,000,000 words of editing.

Here's some other writing business notes:

Short Story Submissions (since 2/2009): 41
Rejections- 39 (13 personalized)
Anthology Invites- 1

Workshops- 1
Writers' Group- 1 (I made it to 2 meetings)
Critiques for Others- 29

Overall, I'm proud of what I've accomplished. :-)