To Market, To Market...

As I sat down to update this blog and pondered what to write about, my daughter decided that she wanted to climb into my lap and volunteer her services. Being that most people are not fluent in reading baby gibberish, however, the backspace key came quite in handy.

I have been perusing markets to submit my short story to, seeing as it didn't win the contest. I have found some promising leads; one in particular seems like it would be a perfect match. They are not open to new submissions until March 31st, however, so in the meantime, I'm going to go back over my story and see if there's anything I want to change. I felt like I pared my story down so much, cutting out a lot of good description and dialogue, just to meet the word limit for the contest. This particular publication, however, has larger word limits, and so I might add some things back in.

I don't want to add things just for the sake of adding, though. I think I will have to get some outside opinions on this.

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Sour Grapes, Or Honest Assessment?

I started my new job on Monday. The first day was quite rough. Long story...don't ask. But suffice it to say that I felt overwhelmed, and I second-guessed myself about going back to work. Luckily, the week got better, and I am getting the hang of things at the office. My boss told me on Thursday that he was very pleased at how quickly I am learning things. Boy, did I need to hear that! Especially since I felt like I wasn't learning fast enough. I guess it just goes to show that we are our own worst critics sometimes.

The good news is that my writing hasn't fallen completely by the wayside. Despite the dishes, the cooking, and getting the baby fed and put to bed at a decent hour after work, I still manage to do a little writing most nights. Of course, it's usually only a paragraph or a few sentences, but anything helps. It's better than not writing anything at all.

And besides, I've been doing more writing today, now that it's the weekend anyway. Things are looking up for me.

Mostly.

I still have never received any word about my short story that I submitted. So, I went online to the website, and the early results were posted. I did not win either the grand prize or the first place in the category I submitted to. I'm disappointed and frustrated. Especially since I skimmed through the story that won the category I submitted to, and I don't think it is nearly as good as mine. It's certainly not half as creative...and on the risk of sounding snotty, it's well...cliched.

Blah. How do you know when your work is honestly better than someone else's, or when it's just a case of sour grapes?

Well, fine. If they don't want my story, I'll submit it elsewhere. THEIR LOSS!

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Submitted!

I sent my vampire cows story in to the Writer's Digest Popular Fiction contest, under the fantasy category. It's entitled Put a Stake in It! It was somewhat inspired by my friend Morgan, who suggested similar titles that didn't quite fit. So that's what I finally came up with one morning while watching my daughter. My husband doesn't like it, and informed me so today. He was then subjected to a short rant about how I didn't care if he didn't like it, it's my story and my title and I like it, which is all that matters.

Then he said, "Boy, once you make up your mind, you really don't budge, do you?"

Usually, no. Especially when I didn't ask for your input to begin with. Ahem.

Figured out some new stuff for my nanowrimo story. I have a small, brief character profile for my main character, and I have a sketchy idea for the ending of my book, which is (as always) subject to change.

Now I just need to figure out my other characters before the contest starts...

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