Holiday Breath-holding

The holidays impact us all for good or for ill. At best one might experience spiritual peace, good food and family fellowship. At worst workplace stress, financial pressure, loneliness and depression dominate. Most of us are caught somewhere in the middle.

This holiday season was my first with submissions in the void. I learned the obsessive way (constantly refreshing duotrope stats), just how slow things can get in the editorial world at this time of year.

The good news is that I'm waiting on a requested revision (another first!) and have a second story that's been "under consideration" at one of the Big Three for more than 48 hours. This is probably not the imminent lead up to "it"--you know--the moment when I finally sell a story and can shout it from the electronic roof-tops, but I feel like I'm getting somewhere, gaining momentum. And I still can't help holding my breath.

Progress

Regarding the contest in my last post...
I won!

My prize, a copy of this year's Writers of the Future Anthology signed by three of the authors, is in the mail. I am very excited to read it (a little market research, hmm?), but more than getting a prize, the results of this little challenge-among-peers means:

1) validation--someone who is not related to me enjoyed my work!
2) very valuable feedback from a variety of readers.

How valuable? It led me to make some significant changes to the story before sending it out into the void. The result: it made it past the slush readers at a very selective pro-paying market, and while it was ultimately rejected, this is a HUGE first!

On an unrelated note, I queried on a story for the first time this morning and received a response this afternoon. As it turns out my submission wasn't lost, they actually liked it! Of course this could still end with a rejection, but it is another big first and a step in the right direction.

Here goes

Writing seems to involve a great deal of waiting.

...for the contest to be judged
...for that trunk story to be rejected from the 10th market you sent it to
...to go to sleep while 20 permutations of the same plot fight for surpremacy in your head
...for the will to reopen that WIP and get crackin'

I am a very impatient person. So far it's not perseverance, but obsession that's keeping me in this new venture. Hopefully by the time that wears off I will have developed some discipline.

In the meantime I am learning. What I have to show for the last 5 months of piecemeal effort:

• 3 complete short stories and 3 WIP's
• an newly cultivated aversion to -ly adverbs and simple verbs
• an unhealthy relationship with a website called duotrope
• a compulsive need to check the wordcount on any short story I read