Monday was the publication date for
Happiness is a Warm Gun: Crime Stories Inspired by Songs of the Beatles. My story is the lead-off,
because "I Saw Her Standing There" appeared on the Fab Four's first
album.
I am particularly delighted by this publication because it
marks my one hundredth published story. This seems like an excellent
opportunity to crunch some numbers and look at my oeuvre, so to speak.
So let's get crunching.
As you will see here the majority of my publications have been in print magazines. Of course, "print magazine" is a phrase that would have been completely unnecessary when I first got published, like "conventional produce" or "analog clock."
And now I feel like I am designing an annual report for a very small niche corporation.
I was surprised to find that fully one quarter of my stories fall into the amateur sleuth category, largely because of my character Shanks.
The Other category is consists mostly of stories with so many characters I can't identify one as the protagonist and use her/him to identify the category.
Here we get to characters, with Shanks taking the lead. He is still very much alive (with at least two stories coming out next year). Unfortunately the next two, Marty Crow and Uncle Victor, seem to be retired.
We will probably hear from the other series characters, if the editors are willing.
Here are the decades in which my stories are set. Since 8 of my tales get listed as fantasy/science fiction I was surprised that only one is set in the future. Some were set in the future when I wrote them, but time has rolled past them. I guess that makes them Alternative History stories by default.
And here we have publication dates. So far the 2010s are in the lead but the 2020s are still young.
Speaking of the future, as I was a couple of paragraphs ago, what does the future hold for my writing?
Well, the day after the Beatles book was published the November/December issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine appeared, featuring "When You Put It That Way." It's my 101st story, so the next century is on its way.
Let's see how far I get...
Congratulations on hitting the century mark, Rob! I’m delighted to have you reach that milestone in a book of mine. (My own contribution to HAPPINESS is #111 for me — but eleven of those have only been published in Dutch and one only in Afrikaans, so “I Call Your Name” is my #99 in English….)
ReplyDeleteWell, you are definitely ahead of me in Dutch and Afrikaan. It has been an honor to be in four of your terrific books.
DeleteCongratulations, Robert. Impressive, too, is where your stories have been published. I’m approaching my century mark…in years, though, not stories.
ReplyDeleteEdward Lodi
That's an accomplishment too, Edward.
DeleteTremendous achievement, Rob. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, Rob! I looked, and I'm still in my 70s. 90% of mine have been in print magazines. But my anthologies are increasing, which is nice.
ReplyDeleteI love this kind of data crunching. I'm tempted to try it myself, and maybe doing other comparisons as well—first-person vs. third-person, male protagonist vs. female protagonist, and so on. Maybe even do the same analysis by market, if I had enough data points for a given market. Hmm, on second thought, that seems like a lot of work. Glad you did it, though!
ReplyDeleteThe only other graph I considered was funny vs serious. It turned out I needed to separate the truly funny (or at least intended to be truly funny) from the merely witty and that was too hard.
DeleteWay to go, Rob. You're moving right along at a steady pace. Before you know it, you'll be at 150 published stories and then at 200.
ReplyDeleteCounting accepted stories I am up to 112. Doubt if I will make it to 150 but who knows?
DeleteWow - that is a terrific number! Congrats, Rob. And I am smiling re your data - that's something I would be accused of doing (business grad who finds comfort in numbers). It's also a good idea, because I've lost a lot of my stories from the 90s (a box lost on a move, and a computer that couldn't be brought back to life). Can't even remember the titles of some.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing, I was just looking at a list of all stories I have ever submitted and realizing I don't remember what some were about. I think I remember all the ones that were published though, at least when I see their titles.
DeleteCongratulations, Rob, and well done you! I know of another anthology story on the horizon, one that might require a 'bar' graph. 102…
ReplyDelete