See -- even Hillary Clinton knows how many weeks the Hint Fiction anthology has been open for submissions.
Now let's get down to the nitty gritty, shall we?
As of this very moment (about 4:00 a.m. here on the east coast of America), 1,129 stories have been submitted. Last week the number was 644, so that means only 485 stories were sent in this week. Down from the first week, yes, and I expect next week to be low too, but then have a surge of stories in the last couple days.
And out of the 1,129 stories submitted so far, how many did I put in the "maybe" pile?
Only 123 in all.
As a recap, I'd placed 82 stories in the "maybe" pile last week, so that means I put 41 stories in the "maybe" pile this week.
Yes, the number's been cut almost in half. Why? Because I'm not being as lenient as I was the first week, where I put anything I thought was decent in the "maybe" pile. No, now decent doesn't do it.
What else to say? I don't know. It's late, and I need sleep, but I just got an e-mail from someone asking me to confirm the proper e-mail address to send submissions. That address again is hint.fiction@gmail.com. Apparently there's a bozo or two out there making up fake e-mail addresses for writers to send their stories to. Should I be surprised? No. Should you? Of course not. Just remember to send it to the right address and everything will be okay.
Also, I should mention (for those of you who don't follow me on Twitter) that Monday I spoke with a researcher at NBC. She's doing a series of articles about Twitter and very very very very short fiction and asked me some questions about Hint Fiction and the anthology. David Erlewine has already been interviewed on, like, camera, and Monday I'll be zipping down to Washington, D.C. to get my ugly mug on camera too. I also hope to meet up with some writer friends while I'm down that way, so it will be a lot of running around, but I'll try my best to tweet my progress a la Neil Gaiman as the day wears on.
Yes, I know -- you all can hardly wait, but patience, people, patience ...