Here are my monthly stats for August:

• 7,600 new words of fiction written this month. ¹
   
• 19 first drafts currently in progress (some untouched for a long time)
   
• 4 first drafts currently "ripening" before second draft.
   
• 3 second drafts currently in progress
   
• 1 second draft currently in the hands of "trusted readers."
   
• 4 third drafts currently in progress.
   
• 1 third draft currently awaiting polishing. ²
   
• 0 fourth drafts in currently in progress.
   
• 1 rewrite (at request of editor) currently in progress.
   
• 10 stories currently submitted to markets
   
• 1,400 words in shortest story currently submitted.
   
• 8,700 words in longest story currently submitted.
   
• 0 offers of publication received this month.
   
• Longest current wait without response: 298 days.³
   

¹ Not spectacular, but when you consider that I wrote nothing at all between August 7 and August 27, it looks better. The first week I was writing my last story for Clarion. The last week I was revising my first story for our new crit group.

²This story is also "in the hands of trusted readers," but it’s definitely a third (or even fourth?) draft, rather than a second.

³ You’ll note that the previous winner, the story that was out for more than 460 days, is off the list. That was the Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest, which I didn’t win. Bless them, they had three times as many entries as they expected, and all their judges were squeezing in the work in their spare time.

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Tagged as: critique drafts markets monthly tally submissions words written writing

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