Another story sent in

Well, today I sent out my second submission ever. Ah! It was to a writing competition with a word limit of 3500 words. So much harder than I thought it would be!

The story is called 26 Minutes. It's about a girl's who's been infected with a virus that's turning everyone into mindless mutant monsters. She has a baby in her care that might just hold the key to curing everyone. If she can manage not to kill him first.

In fact, when I started the story, I thought it was going to be flash fiction-- just 1000 words. I just barely managed to squeeze the story out to exactly 3500 words. Not a word to spare. When I turned it over to my editor friend, he actually told me not to send it in until I'd fleshed it out to novella length. But, since it was already mostly done, I made what changes would fit and sent it off anyway. The worst they can say is no. And since no won't do any real harm, I can always flesh it out longer and sell it somewhere else later.

I'm pretty good at being tender when it comes to criticism, even when it's not really criticism. A friend of mine once said that writer's were all raving egomaniacs with poor self esteem. I find the statement pretty true. He was probably quoting someone. When I wrote the story, I was sure that I was going to be able to write something super short and when my editor said I hadn't really managed what I thought I had, I was pretty crushed for a few hours. Right up until my husband handed me a calculator and pointed out that right now at 6 cents a word, my story is only worth so much. Is it really a bad thing to be asked to write it out at 5 times the original length and make 5 times the money on it? It's still a good story. I just need more of it.

So, now my kids get out of school in a week and a half and my time to write this summer will be cut back drastically. Which is frustrating, now that I'm actually getting somewhere. But the ideas are still flowing and collecting, so I think I'm still going to be able to make good use of at least part of my time. I've spent the past couple weeks since April rewriting this story and my WotF story and getting them both sent in, plus putting in my garden and catching up on all the household work that's been ignored for too long. It's been amazing how hard it's been to focus on anything since the writing slowed down. I think I might actually get more done when I'm squeezing life in around the writing and not the other way around.

I find out at the end of July how this story did, and at the end of September what came of my WotF story. My fingers are tightly crossed. I guess my next step is to start prepping my next WotF entry. Submission starts in July.

It feels so good to finally be getting somewhere. My husband laughed at me the other for wanting to be a writer. It involves a very large amount of both waiting and criticism. Both of which, I really, really don't handle very well. I guess I'll just to practice, right?

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First submission ever

Today, I submitted my first story. I submitted Writer's of the Future. This is it. Whether the story does well in WotF or not, I have officially crossed over into the world of actual, real-life, trying to sell my stories. I am now a Writer.

How weird is that?

All these years of dreaming, I've never sent anything else off. In fact, I've only ever submitted my work once before. It was in 12th grade. I was sitting in English class and my old English teacher from 10th grade burst into the room with a paper in her hand. She slapped it down on my desk and announced, "You have to submit this to the contest!"

Totally random.

It was an cheesy poem I had turned in for an assignment two years earlier. It was about a unicorn. Yeah. I'm that girl. I still remember most of it. Cloven hooves and golden horn, Wings of sparkling white. She fly's by day to the sun and back, The moon by way of night. I submitted it and ended up winning 1rst place for the whole school. The prize was an expensive bottle of shampoo. I had to spend $20 to get the conditioner that went with it.

Now that I'm actually sending things away, the rewards have the potential to be much better than shampoo. And I'm really excited. It is my intention to start sending one story out each month and continue to do so until the kids are in school and I have a bit more of my life back. Then I'll send out more.

I won't know how I do in WotF until late September and I'm not sure how that's going to be. Patience is not my strong suit, but I guess it's going to have to become so. There's a whole lot of sit and wait involved in writing.

I'm really not very good at it though!

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