Most of my submissions this year were reprints, partly because there's a larger number of podcasts around these days and partly because I haven't written an awful lot of new fiction. There are a number of reasons for this. One was a change of job role to something more challenging that left me with no mental energy to write. This is something I'm just going to have to learn to work around, since it's not going to get any better. Another reason was a lack of desire to engage with the science fiction and fantasy publishing community. Some of this was impostor syndrome: clever and strange stories seem to be around in spades, and (with a couple of exceptions) I don't seem to be able to write them. The rest was the fact that it's a pretty shitty place to be writing at the moment. The overwhelming impression I'm left with is there's a large contingent who think you shouldn't be writing in the genre unless you're a straight white male. And there's an equally large contingent who welcome diversity, unless you're not from the group you're writing about in which case, no matter how hard you try and what your intentions are, you'd better get every tiny detail correct or they'll eviscerate you on Twitter.
This is, of course, a generalisation. But it doesn't feel like a fun or safe place to be writing any more, which makes me not want to write.
I still need to decide what I'm doing for 2016. Somehow I need to stop worrying about the community looking over my shoulder telling me I'm Doing It Wrong. I have considered going to play in a different sandbox for a while, but I'm sure it will turn out to be as equally full of poop. Maybe I'll take a break from submitting for a year. Or a break from Twitter. I don't know, but I need to do something.