Sometimes I set myself a goal for the year. It’s not quite a New Year’s Resolution, but more of an intention, something to aim for. I’d be disappointed if I did nothing to try to achieve it, but I’m not too bothered if I don’t do everything I aimed for.

The year I turned nineteen (1982), I decided to read 100 books during the year. This was because, after starting university in 1980, I found I was reading less fiction. Most of my reading was science textbooks. I missed what fiction can bring: the pleasure in story, the joy of language, the escape. So I set myself the 100 book goal. I kept a record at the back of my diary of everything I read and allocated stars to each book. My highest-rated books (4 stars) included ‘Looking On Darkness’ – André Brinks, ‘The Clown’ – Heinrich Böll, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ – Ken Kesey, ‘The Bleeding Heart’ – Marilyn French and ‘Merlin’ – Robert Nye. Janet Frame and Joy Cowley were on the list but otherwise it was all overseas authors. Most of the books I read back then were written by men, so in a later year I decided to read only female authors, to catch up.

I finished the hundredth novel late on New Year’s Eve (I was staying with my parents in Masterton and had no parties to go to), speed reading Jean Genet’s ‘Funeral Rites’. (I’d given up on the stars sometime in November, so I can’t tell you now what I thought).

So, fast forward to January 2023 when I set myself a target of submitting my writing 50 times during the year ie almost weekly. January was quiet and I was able to get 8 submissions away, so I was off to a good start.

To be clear, I was counting submission-events, rather than individual pieces. So if I sent off 5 poems to a journal, that was one submission; if I sent a whole manuscript to a publisher, that was one submission; if I entered a short story to a competition, that was one submission. Much of it was work I had already written, although there were also a number of new pieces. Commissions also counted, as did reprints of previously published work.

I’m pleased to say I got there, submitting work 50 times by the end of December. Of course, this has meant collecting many rejections. Generally, I don’t mind rejections too much. The way I see it, if I start a piece, that’s a success; if I finish a piece, that’s a success; if I send a piece out into the world, that’s a success. Obviously, I want everything to find a good home, but if a journal or publisher is not a match for a particular piece, I try to place it somewhere else. When a rejection arrives, I might feel a momentary disappointment, but most of the time, this is quickly displaced by the small pleasure of being able to update the elaborate submissions workbook I keep in Excel.

So, this is how I did in 2023. All up, I submitted 79 things: 34 stories (including flash fiction), 39 poems, 2 manuscripts and 4 essays/ creative non-fiction pieces. There is some double counting – if I submitted the same story to two different journals, I counted it twice. And if I was to add in all the individual stories included in the short story manuscript I submitted, the total goes up to 99 (or 98 really, because then you’d have to remove the manuscript from the total).

So far, 6 of the short stories and 5 of the poems have been published. A short story collection, an essay and a poem are due out in 2024. I’m also waiting to hear back about 9 more stories, 9 more poems and another manuscript.

It was a good exercise and I feel pleased with myself for getting there. I’m not intending to do it all again this year, but I will try to have 5 – 10 things out there in the world at any one time. Then, when a rejection comes back, I still have something to hope for.

I also had a few things published in 2023 that I’d submitted in 2022, so that was nice.

This year, rather, my aim is to write more. I haven’t set a firm target, but I reckon if I have 12 new things by the end of 2024, I’ll be very happy.