Back to fiction

ff goes the latest short story submission.  I stayed up until Oh-Stupid-Hundred this morning getting it finished in time for deadline, which was today.  Now I sit tight and wait for a response (or, better yet, immediately start writing something else, which is a better use of my time).  Even if this story doesn't get published, it was worth writing -- I got the thing finished, and I sent it in by the deadline.  For someone whose two speeds are Slow and Reverse, that's a small achievement in itself.

To be honest, it's been a while since I submitted a short story for publication.  In my college years I had a little spot on the wall in my unfinished closet under the stairs, known as The Shrine for Rejected Writers, where I pinned up all the rejection form letters I'd been sent as a kind of catharsis.  But when you get to the point where you could practically paper the wall with your rejections, the idea stops being so cute.  Eventually I took the whole thing down. Around the same time I also stopped submitting fiction to magazines.  I still sold some nonfiction, but anything creative stayed buried in notebooks or on my hard drive.  When I started this blog, some of my creative writing ended up here as well.

Just recently I've been reading some published short stories, and thinking to myself, "Sooz, if these folks are getting their fiction published, why aren't you?"  And the little voice in my head (which sounds a lot like my blood monitor for some reason) promptly responded, "Hello?  Because they're submitting stuff and YOU'RE NOT!  Get on the stick, lady!"  So I saluted smartly and got typing.

Anyway, if anyone should be interested in reading it, I'll let you know if it's accepted.  Conversely, if it gets rejected I'll probably post it here.