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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