Last Updated Thursday, January 30, 2003
 

2003 Story Stats
 

2002 Stats      2001 Stats
 
 

Clarion Points

 In order to be of good cheer when opening rejection letters, I have invented "Clarion Points". The original idea was to measure when I have been back at this writing thing long enough to apply to Clarion. Here is how the rules worked: I submitted stories and poems to publications. I got 10 points for an acceptance, 4 points if they referred me to another magazine, 2 points for a personal rejection letter, and 1 point for a form letter. Once I had 100 points, I got to apply to Clarion. I heartily recommend doing something like this so that you look forward to rejection slips.

Update: I went ahead and applied to Clarion anyway, with only 84 points. I broke one hundred on the day my acceptance from Clarion West arrived!

I am still tallying the points, but I don't know what they're for anymore. Any ideas?
 
 

The Novel
 
I've been neglecting putting up stats concerning the novel I'm working on with David Ackert, but recently we've been getting more serious about it and tracking our progress. We have an outline, and we mail chapter drafts back and forth until we decide any further differences are too minor to worry about for the first draft -- above all, that fixing any problems won't cause "ripple effects" that break other finished chapters -- and then we declare them "blessed". Here is the current projection:

19 chapters blessed for first draft
Currently blessing a chapter every 17 days
5/20/2002 to 4/3/2003 = 318 days so far
(41-19) * (318 /19) = 368 days to go
Current projected completion date for the first draft: April 5, 2004
Average length of finished chaps: 2697 words
Projected length of Crimp first draft: 111220 words
If we could bless a chapter every two weeks, we'd be done on: February 5, 2004
If every ten days, November 9, 2003
If every week, September 4, 2003

Story Status