That makes my theoretical words per hour a MAXIMUM of 4200. Divide by about half, since I write fantasy and sci-fi and therefore have to type names like Norstrilia and Tk’tk’tk and my theoretical maximum is 2100 words. Right now, I’m at about 800 words an hour of first draft. Obviously, there’s room for growth.

So what’s your theoretical maximum vs actual output?

Music to write by: “Bohemian Like You” by The Dandy Warhols

A question came up in one of the panels at NorWesCon on the weekend. An audience member wanted to know how many submissions Asimov got every month, and I, your loyal correspondent happened to have read the stats on SFReader. I’ve reprinted some of the more important markets here, but a more detailed list can be found in the original article.

Weird Tales 180 – 360
Brutarian 200
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 200
Realms of Fantasy 200
Strange Horizons 200
Talebones 200
Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine 200 – 400
Cemetery Dance 300
The Pedestal Magazine 500
Absolute Magnitude 500
(The Magazine of) Fantasy & Science Fiction 600
Analog 800
Asimov’s Science Fiction 800 – 850

850 a month. That’s kind of discouraging. But never fear! 90% of the stories are of the same quality as The Eye of Argon. The text of that literary gem can be found here. As an added benefit, some magazines like to run a piece by a new writer every once in a while, after all, a lot of great writers had their first big breakthrough in the pages of some of these magazines.

So, now that I’ve shown you the statistics, ignore them. They don’t apply to you. Start at the top and work your way down, sooner or later you’ll get lucky!

EDIT: If you think those stats are bad, I’m told Writers of the Future gets over 1800 entries a quarter!

2ND EDIT: Check out this post from an actual editor at TOR: slushkiller