Time is an ad hoc measure of the physical universe, invented by our soft and limited mortal minds, to divide the infinite into chunks we can reasonably digest. It is a thin and feeble guide rope to anchor us to sanity as we scale the ineffable, unfathomable face of the endless universe. As someone who struggles often with the vicissitudes of globe spanning timezones I know how little meaning the human measure of time holds. Dates mean NOTHING. Hours mean NOTHING. The calendar is a fiction invented by fools who thought the Earth was the center of the universe. The New Year of my ancestors doesnt arrive until February.

Yet, if one were to take a breather, to powder your fingers, to look down at the worm trail youve left behind and consider the miniscule progress youve made before climbing up and on, what more convenient moment than at the boundary between the arbitrarily defined years

So, one of those usual year end round ups for 2014, then.

It was a watershed year for me, SFF writing wise. In 2014 I started to write and submit stories regularly. An experience new to me. I sent out a grand total of eight submissions in 2013. In 2014 I sent out enough that I sold eight submissions. I wrote more stories this year than I did for the past five. Im a slow writer, it was hard. Several times I thought of giving up.

But I stuck with it, and I think it paid off. I qualified for SFWA. I broke into at least four markets I had been dying to break into. People sometimes told me nice things about the stories I had published, and Lois Tilton liked my stories enough she called me this years new author of promise in her 2014 review roundup. Neo whoa moment. MAJOR Neo whoa moment.

As running starts go, I think I did alright.

There were other things about my 2014 which were cool, like attending cons and being on panels for the first time, finally getting out of the newsroom, being accepted into a pretty good grad program Creative writing at the University of East Anglia. But who cares about that silly real life stuff, really

Apparently, yearly submission stats are a popular thing to do these days. Ill show you mine if, etc etc etc

My 2014 In Submissions

Submissions: 38
Acceptances: 8 22.6 percent
6 to prorate markets, 2 to semi pro markets
Personal rejections: 12 31.6 percent
Form rejections: 12 31.6 percent
Pending: 6

Three of the stories I sold were published this year har, har, och har the other five will appear in 2015.

I shopped around a total of 15 stories this year. 6 of them were written this year, 2 were complete overhauls of old story ideas.

Of the 24 rejections I received in 2014, a single story accounted for a whopping 12 of them 6 form, 6 personal. Thats 50 percent of the rejections I got
The second runner up took 5 rejections 20 percent. 3 forms, 2 personals.

Of the stories I sold, 4 sold to the first market I sent them to, while I had one outlier which was rejected by 7 markets before it sold. The others had 1 to 3 rejections each.

My quickest sale was 4 days, to Strange Horizons seriously. Slowest sale took 99 days, to Apex. Still great

The fastest rejection I got took 2 days, from Goldfish Grimms Spicy Fiction Sushi. And it was a personal The longest wait for an R took 99 days to a form, from Nature Futures.

And there we go. 2014 summed up in a number of pithy lines. That was fun, lets do it again

PS Due to perfidious things called deadlines and more deadlines, the December edition of Fiction Nuggets will be combined with Januarys, meaning itll show up around the start of February.

PPS I still need to blog about the story I have in Athenas Daughters vol. 2 before the Kickstarter closes on January 15th. Kick me about it if I dont.

To tusinde fjorten af bedommelsesudvalg is what Google Translate told me 2014 in review is in Danish. This is, however, also the Google Translate that told my friend I heard you like potatoes translates to jeg horte dig som kartofler. Which actually means I heard you, as I would potatoes. Moral of the story GOOGLE TRANSLATE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

ETA I have been reliably told, ie by an actual Danish person, that bedommelsesudvalg actually means REVIEW COMMITTEE. WOW GOOGLE THANKS FOR THE MEGA HELP. It has been suggested that En gennemgang af 2014 or Et tilbageblikk pa 2014 would have been a suitable alternative.