Goal Check-In for "Mid"-May and Submission Stats

May's about 2/3 over now, but that's still vaguely "mid"-month. So, here's a real quick goal check-in.

1. Make 15 non-reprint submissions of short stories. - Just achieved that one tonight.
2. Write at least one story of more than 1000 words. - I have one in progress that will be well over 1000 words. The question is, will it be complete by month-end?
3. Submit at least one story for the first time. - Also achieved as of tonight.
4. Reply to all Kazka Press submissions by May 25th. - Still got a lot of work to do on this, but I don't anticipate it being a problem.

So, for my relatively-unambitious (for me) goals, I'm doing fairly well.

In the big picture, I'm still WAY behind on my for-the-year goals. My short story reading has slacked off this month and my new-story submission rate has been abysmal. A direct consequence of that latter item is that I have very few upcoming publications at this point. That's partly due to some quick turnarounds on recent sales, but it's also a reflection of the fact that I haven't been as on top of getting new things out as I have in the past and there have been times when I haven't been great about getting older stories back out the door after a rejection.

How big of a difference has that made? Well, here are my stats for January 1st through May 21st from 2012 and 2013.

Year	Submission Respones	Acceptances	Rejections
2013	70	6 (3 pro) [8.57% overall, 4.29% pro]	64
2012	161	14 (2 pro) [8.69% overall, 1.24% pro]	147

I've got to admit that I wouldn't have guessed that my actual acceptance rate was higher, even fractionally, during that time frame in 2012. But you can see where the big difference is. We're 141 days into this year (and we were 142 days into last year, now that I think of it...) and I've averaged basically half a response per day. Last year I was averaging over a response per day. (In fact, I'd averaged over a REJECTION per day...)

I'm not sure I'll ever get back to early-2012's pace. There was a point there where I had over 40 short stories circulating and I've been in the mid-20s most of the last six to nine months. Which is still quite a few!

And I'm not sure there's any huge point to any of this musing, other than for my own benefit. But if you find it useful or inspirational or interesting, that's cool, too.