I’ve been doing something wrong. I’ve been calling it my Rejections and Dejections. Of course I’ll never sell anything that way. So from now on it’s “Sales and Submissions”.

And, yeah, I did think of calling it “Sales and Sunshine”.

Fiction

Last month I wrote 4 850 new words of fiction, which is 35 % of the previous month’s total and 52 % of my 1 year running monthly average. I completed 2 stories for a total of 650 words, which is 7 % of the previous month’s total and 12 % of my 1 year average. All in all, the month was substantially below average.

I submitted 21 times and got 19 rejections (if you’re wondering how that adds up: these are rejections for submissions from previous months). I also sold 1 story, had no stories published, and I have 22 stories currently submitted and waiting for a response.

Since I started keeping track in late 2014 I’ve written 127 630 words of fiction.

Last month I crashed. Completely. I lost my will to write, I stopped enjoying writing and my efforts to push through fell flat.

It happens, I guess. What I did wrong was trying to push through when I was getting writing exhaustion. At the end of the month I gave up, and let myself rest without feeling guilty, and that made me want to write again, which I’ve, slowly, started doing.

This month I plan to take things as they may fall, and not push myself beyond what I can handle right now. Yeah, it’s going to be slow going, and I’m not coming closer to my goals of becoming a pro writer any faster, but I’d rather throw in a resting month than burn out and stop writing, or worse, getting a permanent writer’s block.

Non-fiction

Last month I wrote 5 500 new words, which is 85 % of the previous month’s total and 87 % of my 1 year running monthly average. I finished 5 new blog posts for a total of 6 500 words, which is 127 % of the previous month’s total and 117 % of my 1 year running monthly average.. That makes the month about average. I also got 9 new subscribers to my email list.

Since I started keeping track in late 2014, I’ve written 117 930 words of non-fiction.

Same here; no motivation to write. ‘Nuff said. Summer’s around the corner and I intend to do a lot of reading and resting.

Game Design

Last month I created 0 new prototypes, updated 1 prototype and ran 4 playtests. I played 15 games and my most liked game has been Through the Ages, which I played 1 times.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and balancing on paper last month, but didn’t have much time to playtest. I did run a couple of successful playtests on Midsummer, which surprised me as they were with a group that I hadn’t figured would like the game. I got some great feedback along the lines of where the game breaks down in presentation, so now I’ve updated the prototype and will be testing the new one soon.