By the numbers

It’s another new year. So I guess it’s time to tally up my score for last year. I think I did pretty well. As a writer I need to track where I submit things to and what the outcome is. I keep a database which makes it easy to count up some of my important statistics.

I was rejected 64 times this last year. While it might seem odd that I’d lead off with my rejections, it’s not that unusual for a writer to remember them. JK Rowling was rejected 12 times before her books about Harry Potter were accepted, and Agatha Christie tried for 4 years before her first book was published. So the quantity of rejection can actually demonstrate how hard a person is trying as a writer. My 64 is actually significantly up from 2015 where I only had 34.

Trying does seem to be paying off. Last year I actually had 27 poems selected for publication. Some of those will be coming out this year, but they were selected last year. While the Los Angeles area still seems to be where I’ve had the most luck getting accepted, I’ve had works selected by publishers in India, Great Britain, and back on the East Coast. I had one play, my “Moon Rabbit”, produced down at the Empty Space in Bakersfield and it has been selected to be published in the GNU Journal, which is out of National University. I also had three haiku and one haibun selected for the Southern California Haiku Study Group anthology. (A haibun is a piece of prose that is followed by a haiku.)

Here’s one more writing statistic. I wrote 20 of these “Lost in the Stars” pieces last year. Since The Loop comes out every two seeks, I guess I didn’t miss as many as I had thought. It’s not always easy coming up with new topics for these pieces, but I’ll keep trying to fill you in on the interesting things I come across.

A couple more high points for the year. I got to see and meet both Kern County’s and California’s current Poet Laureate. Plus I had the honor of being invited to speak to our local Tehachapi branch of the Kiwanis.

Since I’ve been submitting up through the very end of 2016, I’ve already got a lot of stuff out for consideration, so I’ll be getting some rejections or acceptances pretty soon. I’m hitting the ground running for 2017. Here’s hoping I can get an even higher “score” for this year. Oh, and I’ve already written one “Lost in the Stars”.

If you would like to let me know what you think, send me an email at [email protected]. If you would like links to additional information visit my blog at http://mathnerde.blogspot.com/.