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- In 2017 I had a backlog of unpublished material.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.
An all-in deal that includes alcohol is a challenge to one's will power, especially if there aren't many other distractions. I think I coped - alcohol doesn't fuel my style of creativity. I saw my first whale in the wild, and the dunes were sometimes Saharan. We went through the gay nude part of the beach on the way.
I read "Mislaid" by Nell Zink,
"Bearings" by Isobel Dixon, "Honeycomb" by M.R. Peacocke (the sunset suits her pamphlet) and "The things I would tell you" by Sabrina Mahfouz (ed) - writing by British Muslim women. I wrote 3 little pieces - about 1200 words all told.
The interior of the island is raw geology with a few little villages in the process of abandonment or touristification. Here's a little community stage that might not have been so different years ago. No Moroccan influence, though the mainland's not that far away.
History and culture weren't easy to find. There's little evidence left that there was an indigenous (Berber) population, and churches are few and far between. But the island's not short of interest - "Secret" is a Swingers' Club by a Spar shop, in a themed block of buildings (Holland, Italy, etc).
We went to Hook of Holland, Rotterdam, Gouda, Ultrecht, Amsterdam, the Hague, then back to the ferry. Ulrecht in the rush hour was scary, especially since some of the bike-lanes were used by mopeds too. We did up to 100 km/day, using many bridges and ferries. The most interesting was this one, which we propelled ourselves.
Zanvoort had a British Festival - Highland games, Sherlock Holmes, a mini Eye, and afternoon teas.
This was in the museum park. I bet many people photograph it.
The landscape and lifestyle between the cities had a Hobbity feel to it. There were many moated houses, and more horses than I expected. In Amsterdam we passed a dressage training place.
We travelled cheaply, but stayed in comfortable places like the SS Amsterdam, living off buffet breakfasts. I watched England beat Columbia in Ultrecht, in a hotel where Messi has stayed.
The language puzzled us at times. My German wasn't as useful as I'd hoped. This sign was warning us about a cattle grid.
I read "The Pier Fall" (Mark Haddon), "Nothing to worry about" (Vanessa Gebbie) and "Subjunctive Moods" (CG Menon). No poetry. I am rethinking my prose styles.
On 30th July I attended a day of sessions about getting a short story collection published, with talks by Divya Ghelani (who was tutored for a year by Venessa Gebbie - small world), Rupert Dastur (TSS), Farhana Shaikh, Rebecca Burns, CG Menon, Alison Moore, Mahsuda Snaith and Megan Taylor - all of them good. A good audience too - lots of us are trying to do what so few of us will succeed in. The points I noted were
I hadn't realised how much Birmingham figures in Lord of the Rings. Tolkein used to play by Sarehole Mill (close to where he used to live), where now there are two metal models of Birmingham towers (Perrott's Folly and Edgbaston Waterworks Tower) that he may have had in mind when writing his book. We went to see the actual towers - part of the Tolkein Trail. It's a good bet that aspects of the mill and the surroundings - Moseley Bog - feature too.
I popped into Waterstones and by chance found my story book there, next to Christopher Logue's poetry book. By some strange reasoning that I now can't recall, I thought it best to leave the book where it was.
This tapestry shows our house - it's the one on the right. Everything looks tidier than it really is - no telephone line for a start. 
My bedside. Radio, diary, reading material, writing material, etc. The green folder contains my submissions record. In the distance there's an Italian/ English dictionary and a competition form.
From our bedroom window in this photo you can see the table-tennis table twice. As usual, there's lots of greenery. From this distance you can't see the grapes around the summer house. I'm trying to write outside more.
One day we'll tidy up the loft - the board-games, the children's books, old bank-statements, demi-johns, Scalextrics, etc. Here are bikes and a sledge.
A rarely-seen view of the kitchen from the spare room which makes the place look huge. I spy cereal packets top-left and Woks on the right, with a big blue cold-box straight ahead.
The spare room at the back serves many functions. Here, behind the ironing board, you can see the left-overs of my attempt to create a video of a programming talk. 
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 
