At the start of 2017 I decided that I'd try to increase quantity of output (easy to do, since I write a poem a month if that, and few stories), being less precious about quality, and I decided to send more things off, not ignoring themed issues and calls for submissions. The year was fairly successful - about 20 acceptances, and more pieces written than usual. People say that the wider the base of the pyramid, the higher the pyramid, and that's what I found. I got into some places I'd not been in before, and wrote several pieces that I was pleased with.
In 2018 I intended to build on this. In addition I decided to start afresh, going to workshops on how to write, how to get published, etc. I also walked around with a notepad. However, it's been one of my worst years for acceptances. Why?
- Several publications stipulate that people shouldn't submit for a year after being published, so there were places I couldn't send to in 2018.
- In 2017 I had a backlog of unpublished material. Many of the acceptances were of old work that I'd made more marketable.
- Though I think I'm writing better, I suspect that actually I'm becoming more niche, less fashionable. An elegant prose style maybe, but few characters to empathise with. Interesting poetry, but disruptive style-switching.
- I've had several near-acceptances (short-listed, etc) that in other years might have been acceptances.
- If I'm trying to improve quality by widening the base, I need to widen the base a lot to improve quality a little. I know of people who've widened their base by an order of magnitude. My increase was nothing like that.
What's perhaps most disappointing is that I've a handful of c.2000-word short stories written in the last 5 years whose publication I thought would be just a matter of time. Silly me. So next year -
- I'll pay for submitting - several magazines (e.g. Ambit) now charge for submissions. I don't mind this - after all, they need to cover submittable costs, and in the olden days submissions weren't free anyway, requiring 2 stamps and 2 envelopes. I've avoided such publications up to now.
- I'll more brutally cannibalize old stuff
- I'll try more US paper magazines
- In the bio that I send mags I'll not say when my books/booklets were published (too long ago).
On the plus side I'm getting more pleasure from others' successes - fellow members of writers groups I go to are appearing in several magazines.
Before I retired from the rat-race I was first in the West Sussex poetry competition (1992), first in the "short Fiction" (Univ of Plymouth) competition (2006), and placed in competitions run by "Varsity", "Cambridge Writers", "Kent and Sussex Poetry Society", and "Staple". I've more or less given up entering competitions nowadays - my poetry's more suited to magazines, and my better stories are too literary, I suspect. 
My story collection "By All Means" (ISBN 978-0-9570984-9-7), published by Nine Arches Press, is on sale from 
My poetry pamphlet "Moving Parts" (ISBN 978-1-905939-59-6) is out now, on sale at the 
