Resolutions

I resolve to suck at updating my blog more often.

Since I keep trying and failing to update this blog on a regular basis, I figured I'd try doing the exact opposite for a while. See if I can't trick my brain into doing what I want it to! Show it who's boss. (Technically, I think my brain is the one in charge, but shh! Don't tell it that!)

When I first started sending out my stories, I'd make resolutions like, "I'm going to sell ten stories this year." And I'd usually meet my goal, but it'd drive me crazy. There's just too much you can't control once a story leaves your desk. For example, I once submitted a story titled "The Scattered Man," and it was rejected for being too much like Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. My story is about a nomadic tribe in a desolate world, and Bester's is about telepathy and crime in the 24th century. Except for the word "man" in the title, there's really no similarity.

You can't control why an editor rejects your story. Sure, you can control how well you format your story according to guidelines--you can control whether you're rejected for sending in a manuscripted printed in pink ink on yellow paper. But you can't make sure an editor hasn't just bought a story like yours ten minutes earlier, or that they won't make assumptions about your story based on the title or whatever, or that you haven't just caught them on a bad day. So making resolutions that depend so much on someone else, I realized, was folly.

But I do resolve to actually start sending out more stories this year. I've gotten behind on that, for various reasons. That's purely something I can control. Unless telepathic cops read my mind and stop me.