2023 Annual Wrap-Up Post

2024 is nearly here, and as is my custom, I must write my annual writing-focused wrap-up post. If you’re looking for my 2023 Awards Eligibility Post (aka everything that I had published this year), you can find it here!

Statistics

Spoiler alert: I’m drafting this post before December 31, so these numbers not be 100% accurate when that day rolls around.

In 2023, according to The Grinder, I:

• made 202 submissions (vs. 200 in 2022)
• received 10 acceptances (!!!) (vs. 5 in 2022), with 3 of them pending publication! (#gethype)
• received 139 form rejections (vs. 127 in 2022)
• received 25 personal rejections (vs. 22 in 2022)
• ended the year with 2 hold notification (vs. 2 in 2022)

As we end the year, about 70% of the pieces I’ve been shopping around are translations (up from 40% last year). This is partly due to my own personal push on completing & editing more translations, and partly due to my frustrations with my own writing.

Writing Struggles

2023 was a dry year on the writing-and-editing-my-own-stories front, and on the poetry front, too. Imposter syndrome is real, and it’s way easier to believe that someone else’s work is worth translating than it is to focus on editing my own pieces.

Most of the stories I’ve written this year have been short pieces in response to NYCMidnight contest prompts. NYCMidnight competitions manage to tap into that terrible discovery in a way that works well for my brain, and at least NYCMidnight keeps me writing SOMETHING new throughout the year. (I know NYCMidnight contests have high entry fees, and that these are significant barriers to entry for otherwise interested participants. I recognized that I am privileged enough to participate in multiple NYCMidnight contests per year.)

In early December (or was it late November?), I sat down and went through a bunch of open calls for submissions from anthologies. I managed to generate several story ideas I’m happy with from those calls, but odds of me completing any of them before the deadlines are very low right now. (Seasonal depression + the holidays have sucked the energy right out of me this year.)

But, who knows… When I was in high school, I discovered something *terrible*: if I wait until the last minute to write something (i.e., a tight deadline), I do way better! AKA, my teachers gave me better grades on the pieces I started at 11pm the night before they were due than I received on pieces I spent a whole week working on.

Maybe in 2024, I’ll manage to finally catch up on the backlog of my own stories that I need to edit! (Particularly my one novel… 👀)

My Goals for 2023 (in retrospect)

• [COMPLETE] Grow my editing & translation business! (I’ve made progress & met more awesome writers this year, but still not where I want to be on the income front for 2023)
  
• Blog regularly! (LOL, did not achieve this one, but at least my “Rise of Skywalker Drinking Game” post is consistently popular.)
  
• [COMPLETE] Self-promote every day of the year! (I think it’s safe to say I achieved this one – after the first 4 months or so of 2023, I lost track of how I was doing because self-promotion of my writing/translating/editing became second-nature by that point.)
  
• [COMPLETE] Make at least 200 submissions! (As of 12/26, at 202 subs!)
  
• [COMPLETE] Write more stories! (Most of them will never see the light of day, but I did achieve this goal!)
  
• [COMPLETE] Write more poems! (Achievement unlocked! I didn’t write as many or as consistently as I’d hoped, but I did complete this goal, too!)
  
• [COMPLETE] Read more books! (Accomplished! This is an easy goal for me, but it’s always nice to have an easy one to check off the list…)
  
• Attend 1 spec-fic convention per quarter! (I didn’t make it to 4 spec-fic conventions, but I *did* appear at 4 different conventions as a guest speaker +/- moderator, and attended a few extra events!)
  
• [COMPLETE] Keep helping writers improve their storytelling skills! (I would have liked to work with more writers on developmental edits for their pieces this year, but I focused on prioritizing translation work in 2023 and am glad I did! I did have the pleasure of providing critiques to several of my writing buddies throughout the year, which counts as a success in my book!)

My Goals for 2024

• Blog more often.
  
• Make at least 200 submissions. (This seems to be a reasonable, achievable goal for me based on my past years’ performance)
  
• Revise at least 5 more of my own short stories. (I have many in my “EDIT” folder and few in my “OUT” folder.)
  
• Revise the novel!
  
• Write 3 more stories!
  
• Write more poems!
  
• Attend 1 spec-fic convention per quarter.
  
• Work on growing my translation & editing business, and keep helping writers! (Si buscas alguien que te pueda ayudar con las traducciones de tu(s) cuento(s), me encantaría ayudarte! If you need an editor who will help you figure out where you could strengthen your story, someone who loves developmental edits, or someone willing to help you brainstorm through moments of writer’s block, please contact me!)

Thank you!

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported and encouraged my writing, translating, art, and other creative endeavors this year! Hopefully 2024 will be a better year for all of us!