Alison's Journal

Wow, my article "Goofy About Writing" is in the new ByLine magazine I got today (Jan. 2003 issue), only 3.5 weeks after I got the acceptance letter and check! Amazing! What a nice way to end the year.

I just realized that I've gotten 4 writing acceptances this year, which has doubled the number of acceptances I've gotten since my first one 8 years ago! That is, I got 4 acceptances over 8 years' time (1994-2001) and then 4 in one year, 2002. Of course, I've submitted much more this year than I ever did before--in all, I sent off 15 contest entries this year, and 16 submissions to editors, for a total of 32 submissions representing 18 different manuscripts. In any case, it's nice to see myself making progress!

This month alone, which I thought would pretty much be a month "off" because of the holidays, I've submitted 5 manuscripts to editors and 2 to contests, plus sent off 2 others for a conference critique. I've also gotten 3 rejections & 1 acceptance, & gotten a copy of a magazine with an article by me in it. Last month, I drafted a whole novel, wrote about 12,000 words on two other novels, sent 1 story to a contest & 1 to a magazine, got an honorable mention in a short story contest, got 1 acceptance, & got another magazine with an article by me in it. It's definitely sounding like I'm a writer! So it's very fitting that I got a Snoopy "Literary Ace" ornament for my Christmas tree this year, with the year 2002 on it and Snoopy pounding away at his typewriter.