Writer Math
I hate math.
I know a lot of people do, but I absolutely loathe it. Math classes were always torture for me and the only time I got a good grade was in calculus in college when I received an A-. How did I do that? Well I was failing the entire semester but we had a school-wide final exam – where if you got an A in that, the lowest grade they could give you was an A-. That also meant that if you were getting an A in the class thus far, and bombed the final exam – you could fail the entire class.
Thinking of those people who studied hard all year. Suckers.
I passed because I got fired from my retail job right before spring break which meant that I had the entire week to study for the final, and somehow one day while watching Howling 5 and drinking Cherry Diet Coke I taught myself derivatives. I’m not joking. Howling 5 saved my grade point average.
By the way, there is an appalling lack of Howling V: The Rebirth animated GIFs out there so here, have some classic Lon Chaney Jr.
There’s one type of math, I’m good at though. Writer Math.
What is writer math? Well, it’s when you look at the number of stories you’ve written and calculate how many have been sold. It’s when you check your submission and mentally determine your odds by seeing how many other writers submitted to the same market on The Submission Grinder. It’s seeing how many words you have to add to your 1753 word story to get it to reach 2,000 because that’s what an anthology requires.
I do writer math – a lot. One of my favorite forms though – is seeing how many submissions I’ve had, how many stories I’ve written and how many have been sold, rejected, pending etc. For example in 2021 I have:
17 total submissions
- 2 acceptances
- 11 rejections
- 4 pending
Yeah I don’t submit much (ignore my laziness here) – but that means I have an acceptance rate of 12% which isn’t bad. In fact since I first started submitting in late 2018, my overall acceptance is close to that percentage overall. See what I mean? When it comes to writing stats, all of a sudden I’m a mathematical genius.
Well I can do very basic elementary school calculations anyways.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter. Whether I got 2 acceptances out of 300 submissions or 12, no one is going to care. And I highly doubt an editor would be swayed by numbers. “Well, the story sucked but just look at her percentages – maybe we give the kid a chance.”
I picture a surly editor with a cigar in his/her/their mouth in that scenario. Don’t ask why.
I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with numbers when it’s the words I should be caring about. But I guess it’s a fun way to learn I don’t absolutely suck at math – and if I need a refresher, well, there’s always my Howling 5/Diet Coke study method to fall back on, I guess.