The last day has been spent updating my short fiction bibliography. Part of me thinks (knows) its a terrible waste of my time. Classic displacement activity! When I should be writing the next Bunch Courtney Investigation!
I only started it because I came across the ISFDB (Internet Speculative Fiction Database) where my genre publication credits are listed and realised it was somewhat out of date. Updating proved to be far harder than anticipated because some of those credits go back to the prehistoric eras of Amstrad WCPs in the clunky Locoscript format.
Yes I transcribed all those into Word a few decades ago but there have been several drive crashes since then and lost remote hard drive containing all of the back ups (I now have two of those – just in case!)
Its always good practice to keep detailed records, especially of the things you have sent out into the ether knowing that editors can and do take weeks or months to accept or reject. In sheer self defence I keep a spreadsheet of all subs. This is not just to know what is outstanding. Its also my way of keeping note of who has already seen something so that I don’t send it to them again. As an editor I know its not unusual to have the same story sent in by an author for different anthologies and I try hard to avoid doing that myself. Its also useful if you want to send something in as a reprint to have the publication details ti hand rather than having to rummage through the shelves.
Leaving all of that ‘advice’ aside – the thing is I am not a very organised person.
I know there are some really old stories not listed on my current hard drive – but I have no idea where they are. They may possibly exist as hard copies – laboriously spewed out on a dot matrix printer where each page need to be divested off the punchholed edges and separated into single sheets… aargh the agony! If they survived the culling from at least four moves I suspect they will now be lurking in the loft, packed away in one of the numerous dusty boxes.
But… I am prevaricating again. I sitting here writing about not keeping track of writing – when I should be writing.
Those where old tales written such a long time ago, in the days when I was taking my firsts steps along the path, and if I am brutally honest with myself I know they are probably best left where they are… the world is not ready…
Jan Edwards 