Space Bones got its first rejection. It was a form letter, alas, so nothing interesting to report.
I sent it back out to another publication. We’ll see if second time is the charm.
Currently working on finishing the Prince Called Courage novella and then on to edit Monsters.
I jumped with both feet, so to speak.
Space Bones has been submitted to a pro market, Rusalka (poem) as well.
Now, I wait.
Oh, right, I hate wait.
Meanwhile, time to see what my workshop class thinks of the first three chapters of Casimir Hypogean.
Other than to school lit mags, I’ve never submitted anything anywhere in my life. I realize that if I want to be a published writer, I’m going to need to submit things for publication. I’ve read the books, the writer’s essays, the blogs. I know that everyone in the history of writing has been rejected at some point by somewhere. I know that once I get off my ass and do it, the jumping from high place sensation will kick in and I’ll be okay. But now I’m teetering at the edge of the abyss, thinking that it is much too far down. There is still time before the leap and the ‘too late now’ sensations.
It isn’t exactly a fear of rejection that stops me. Part of me fears being accepted and then hating the work that I’ve done. Fears getting out there and having what I write not represent what I want it to. Every year I get better as a writer. Every time I write something it is better than the thing I wrote before it. While this progress is nice, it keeps me crippled in many ways. If I can build it stronger, faster, better with only the technology of time, then nothing is stopping me from waiting until I am at the unnameable peak of my talent. (Until, as a friend pointed out, I’m likely dead.)
I can see the progress. But I want it to be perfect. I want things to be better than good enough. I don’t want the reading worlds’ first impression of me to be less than I am.
I know I just need to take the leap. To step out over the edge, hit the ‘send’ button, and let my darlings fly away from me.
I’m trapped in the eternal human gap between knowing what we need to do and taking the necessary action.
