Getting On Track

Well, today's election day! I'm not huge into politics and I especially hate arguing about them, but I thought I'd mention it because it was the first time I could legally vote! I early voted last Friday and cracked a lot of jokes while avoiding stranger's eyes. Something about politics makes people morose. Go figure.

As I mentioned in October, my first short story was published in the Dallas Writers Journal. The second half of it is set to be published in the November issue. Then I got an email letting me know that the DWJ is moving its magazine to strictly internet. While this is a bit discouraging because I was hoping for a (completed) short story in print to feel accomplished, it's not the worst news I could've received. That might be somewhere along the lines like receiving hate mail after the October portion had hit the streets.

You can read the November issue (as well as all previous issues) here.

Today, I finally cracked open my Writer's Market. It. Is. Amazing.

I'm mad at myself that I didn't do this early. I remember back in 2009 when I read Stephen King's On Writing and he mentioned this was the way to survive as a writer. I kicked myself today when I didn't go out immediately buy it then. Then I kicked myself harder when I realized this has been on my shelf since July. I went through it cover to cover today with some post-its and highlighters. I'd never been so excited to "study".

I now have an organized submission document, and a simplified catalog of agents and contests/awards I'm interested in. I plan to buy a calender and write down submission deadlines for the following year so I can send out some of my fiction. Once I organize a list of the agents I want to contact with my novel in the order I like them, I plan to spend one month where I query an agent a day. Depending on how well nanowrimo goes, I'll know if that month is December or January.

Speaking of nanowrimo, I have finally hit the line where I am "supposed" to be if I plan on finishing by Dec 1st. Which I do.

My productive day also included some time to cook (not sure where I fit it in). I made chocolate chip pancakes: just threw some chips into the box quickmix, which normally I would be against, but my brother asked me to "help" and it ended up my mission to feed him an his girlfriend so I wasn't entirely motivated.

Then I made hummus (recipe-ish here) from scratch. I was apparently supposed to have something called tahini in my pantry. Surprise, I did not. So I threw in some peanut butter instead. It's still delicious - dare I say even more delicious? Then again, that might be because I have a slight PB obsession.

Finally, I cleaned out my blender of the hummus and made pesto sauce. (Both of these would've been way easier with a food processor, but I work with what I've got.) The pesto (recipe-ish here) was supposed to have more basil in it, but I rarely read recipes before I start (which should be evident by now) so I made do somehow. Also, now I have a ton of pesto, enough to eat for a while, so I might look at what else I can throw pesto on. Tonight, I made the family pasta with some awesome garlic bread (which I really could've just eaten the bread but that would not be good).

As for the job update, I have maybe applied as a part-time librarian. I say maybe because the job posting disappeared the next day. I also realize it is ironic that I have applied for a position at the library I was at the day before, concerned about the welfare of children's' reading habits. I have not gotten manuscripts to vet for Tate in a long time, so I applied to intern at Henery Press (in Frisco) so I can gain more publishing/editing experience. I heard back today and have an interview set up Thurday with them, so hopefully that goes well.

First Publication

(A bit of a delay due to not having bookmarked my blog. Now that I see it everyday, I should come up with more regular updates.)

I finally decided to muster up the courage to submit one of my short stories to get published. After looking online at a few literary magazines in the area, I picked Dallas Writers Journal (mainly because the submission fee was free). I picked my best (and favorite) "horror" short story and filled out the info, not expecting much. I don't know much about the magazine, except that they feature "local writers" and the stories are selected by a panel of readers. However, about one to two weeks later I got an email telling me they'd selected my submission.

While I was happy, there was a part of me that was also a bit disgruntled. I began to think - what the hell had I been waiting for before? This paycheck is a mere $10, but I also get my first work published (and maybe even a bit of recognition in the community). I should've been submitting since high school. I definitely should have been submitting during my three years at college. Why had none of my mentors urged me to do so?

I also discovered from this how hard it is to tell people I'm being published. It seems it's always been so much easier for strangers to read my work than friends. It happens that the story I submitted (She's Different) was read by my mom in the earlier drafting stages - but that rarely happens. It made me realize for something that is such a big part of my life, it's surprising how many of my family and friends have never read anything by me. (In fact, my best friend was telling me the last thing she had read were some random chapters of a YA romance I had been drafting in high school.)

If I had to guess, I think it's because I'm much more enamored with my process than with my product. While writing, and rewriting, and editing, and re-editing (etc.) I feel like I'm creating perfection. Then when I get to a point where it's "finished" (for the time being) I'm content. Two weeks, two months, whatever time, later and I am basically embarrassed by the quality.

Is that normal? Is this common with writers? I always begin thinking about published writers here because it makes me nervous for my future. Do authors look at their first novel years down the road and become ashamed that they can't take back these now-permanent words? Will I become that crazy person (knock-on-wood-to-getting-first-novel) who scours book stores with a red pen and my book trying to fix my old mistakes? It makes me lose my mind in a way that's only half kidding.

Eh, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyways, my first publication is a short story but it's been separated into three issues because of its length. (Which gives me a whole other set of issues to internally fret about - will the story have any coherency with just a third of it over the span of ninety-something days?) It's starting in the October issue of the Dallas Writers Journal, titled She's Different.