Alright, so it's been over six months now since I wrote my first short story, and it seems like a good time to look back and see what the first six months as a writer looks like (for me, anyway). This is of course going to look very different from some writers' beginning experience (most of my stories so far have been short flash fiction types of stories), but I think it will probably look very similar to what many others have/will experience(d), so here it is:
From November 2012 through April 2013, I wrote 15 short stories, and I submitted those stories 22 times (total) to 10 different magazines that publish science fiction (6 times to Daily Science Fiction, 5 times to Flash Fiction Online, 3 times to Clarkesworld, 2 times to 100 Word Stories, and once each to 365 Tomorrows, EscapePod, Every Day Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, Mad Scientist Journal, and Strange Horizons).
Of these 22 submissions, 16 got form letter rejections, 2 got rejections with comments (Every Day Fiction and Lightspeed Magazine), 2 got rejected at the final stage (Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online), one got accepted (Mad Scientist Journal), and one never got a response (365 Tomorrows). Average response time for these submissions (excluding the one with no response) was 21 days.
So yeah, a lot of rejection, but I definitely feel like I've made progress over the past few months. The two that made it to the final round at professional publications especially make me feel like I'm getting better/closer. So I'm going to go ahead and predict that the next 6 months will see a few more acceptances...but I guess we'll find out in November.
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