Saturday, December 15, 2018

Submitted for your approval...or not

It looks like my 2018 plan to submit to at least two markets/contests per month is going out with a whimper. I had planned to submit three stories to ScreenCraft's Cinematic Short Story Contest this month to go out with a bang of sorts, but when I got a look at the entry fee - $60 per story - along with consideration of what effect, if any it would have on my writing career (not much, except some bragging rights) I decided that money could be better spent elsewhere. I've got a couple of big writer's convention trips planned for next year so I'm trying to rein in the spending. It's weird, because this is the first time I can recall being deterred by the cost of an entry fee. I just thought it seemed like a lot for a short story, especially when multiplied by three, and I couldn't settle on just one.

If I had entered these stories, that would have given me 18 entries for the year out of a minimum of 24. Without them I only have 15 for the year. Not a great percentage, although at least a couple of down months (March and April) can be explained by the fact that my Mom passed away in March, and the ensuing months were a crazy whirlwind of cleaning out her apartment and then my moving in July. It's just been a rough year. I think I did okay under the circumstances.

As I mentioned here, I'm going to focus more on some lengthier projects going into 2019. Now that I'm officially done with 2018 writing-wise, I'm getting really excited about what next year could bring.

Happy writing everyone!

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