2023 Retrospective

Almost six months into my writing journey, I feel I’ve come a long way, but I have so much further to go, and I’m itching to get there. Starting from essentially zero aptitude, I worked hard in 2023 to improve my writing. For months, my writing remained unreadable, but now occasional glimpses of beauty poke through.

After years of dancing with data, I can’t help but start with some numbers (word counts rounded to the nearest 500):

79,000 words written

• 68 stories, 34 poems, many of which are incomplete and discarded
• 149 submissions: 76 rejections, 11 acceptances, others still pending
• $126 earned

* My subjective personal assessment. “Potentially publishable” includes works that need a rewrite (though likely will never get it); “unpublishable” is a lost cause (but not a waste of time, because I learned in the process). 2023 involved lots of writing as practice.

Categorized based on the main genre. This tracks, since I aimed to write sci-fi and fantasy, dabbling in horror, slipstream, and literary only to test the waters.

I write a lot of dystopian stories. But very recently in 2024, I’ve been thinking about more uplifting stories, so perhaps this will change.

To celebrate about 2023

1. Rekindled my love of reading
2. Started writing!
3. First publication
4. First paid publication
5. First publication at pro rates
6. Learned how to properly submit works to journals
7. Sent 100 submissions
8. Started calling myself a writer
9. Met other writers for the first time
10. Joined writing communities

Discovering what I like to write

1. My very first attempt at writing was a fantasy novel, and I got 3000 words in before I thought: if it turns out unreadable, I will have sunk in so much effort for no return. I soon pivoted to writing flash fiction.
2. I attempted writing literary fiction, but soon realized I had no clue what literary fiction is. It may be a lost cause for me.
3. Although I originally had no intention of writing poetry, I discovered narrative poetry works for me.
4. I wrote a lot of drabbles and microfiction because it was fun. Fitting a story into a condensed format gave me the feeling of solving a puzzle.

My writing-related goals for 2024

1. 100 story submissions and 100 poetry submissions done!
2. Sell 10 works to paying markets done!
3. Sell a story at SFWA pro rates done!
4. Sell a poem in a market paying at least $25/poem done!
5. Write a first draft of a novel
6. Write better (as measured by compliments??)
7. Read more than I did in 2023 done!