Yesterday I let myself become immersed in a total left-brain organizational task. It was very satisfying. I did some folder/file shuffling and a little accounting with a focus on the poems I’ve published to date. 

I’m in a numbers kind of mood. I guess that’s what I do when I fail to write. I’ve been failing for a while now so succeeding in the organizational tasks feels good. 

Here’s the breakdown…

I’ve had 16 poems published this year, which brings my total to 45. Technically the 45 includes poems in my chapbook so that number is a little skewed. Technically the chapbook hasn’t been published yet, but it’s a foregone conclusion now. The book has officially sold the minimum number of copies to be considered for external markets when it’s released. 

That number is 55 and I hit it on the nose this week. The next goal is 50 more than that in order to bump my royalties to 12.5% on all copies sold after the presale period. I also get a list of people who have ordered and it kinda feels like I’m Santa Clause checking who’s naughty and nice. Shame on my family for not buying a copy yet!! 

I’m not in it for the $$$ but it’s good to have goals. 

Continuing on…

In 2021 alone I’ve submitted about 737 poems to about 184 different journals. My acceptance rate (since the beginning of my publishing adventure) is about 10%. The declines account for 85% of all completed submissions and the last 5% are withdrawals. I currently (as of yesterday) have 99 open submissions in Submittable and 4 at publishers that accept submissions through other means (email, duosoma, and custom proprietary forms). 

My newest goal is to hover right around 100 so I’m in great shape at the moment. Really would like that number to be 100 in submittable so I’ll probably spend some time before Christmas Eve scouting another place that might be a good fit. 

My goal in 2021 was to get back up to 30, then 40, then 50. Clearly that is where I have been putting a lot of my energy and time. And at some point, I was like… what the hell… let’s go for 100! Strange but true that my goal for 2022 will be to hold steady there and just aim higher with regard to quality publishers. In order to do that though, I’d have to write some new stuff. This leads to another number I’m not super excited about. 

Less than 5 new poems have been added to my “potentials” list this year. It’s pretty sad. I’ve tried to write. Tried to force it but end up winding around the same topics and can’t break free from pieces I’ve already written. I would make myself a goal for 2022 around this too but that’s not how the creative process works. It’s just not. Maybe I’ll set the bar really low, like do better than in 2021. 🤣

To say that I haven’t written anything this year though would be wrong. I’ve written 172 blog posts and for that have had 2923 views on this blog alone by 1916 visitors. Some of those views are from posts from previous years though, just not sure how to sort that but views are views and likes are likes. Of which I have 1,945 so far this year. I’m also teetering dangerously close to 800 followers on WordPress (I think that is across all my sites). One more good post or poem and that number will be all mine! 

This post doesn’t count cuz nobody cares about my personal numbers or life accounting. 😜

On the whole, I’m down over a thousand views compared to last year and I attribute that to the fact that I’ve been slacking on posting this last half of the year. My daily routine has changed and the daily writing has been one of the casualties. Thanks, Master Chef! 

What else? Oh yeah, my health numbers…

So far this year I’m averaging 12,826 steps a day which is up about 2K from last year. Doing the math for the 365 days this year, that’s about 4,681,855 steps. That’s a lot of freaking steps. 

I’m averaging 6 hours and 38 minutes of sleep a night which is strangely exactly the same as 2020. Despite all my efforts to get better sleep, I have made zero improvement. Wonderful! By the way, I can’t track my actual sleep score as FitBit only reports a weekly average. Seems like a no-brainer to provide monthly and yearly averages like everything else. 

My resting heart rate went up from 62 beats per minute to 63, but I still have an excellent cardio score for a woman of my age. 

None of this helps the fact that I also gained 10 pounds this year. That’s another number I’d rather not talk about. Maybe there’s another goal for the new year brewing in that last bit. We’ll see. 

I think some other super rando numbers will round things out for today…

I donated blood 4 times this year.
Had 3 covid Moderna shots + 1 flu vacciene shot. 
Went on 3 vacations: Arizona, Austin, and California
Installed 18 security cameras and 4 mesh wifi router/boosters.
Visited the hospital (or other medical offices) 44 times supporting my mom through her cancer diagnosis, treatment, and surgery.
And thought about tweeting 24 times (but only tweeted like 6 times). 

Feels a little like this post is more suited for the last few days of December, but who knows what will happen next and there is no time like the present!

Onward and Upward,
~Miss SugarCookie