Now What Do I Do?

A couple weeks back, one writer's group had a 'mailing party'. Members were given 2 weeks to send out as many submissions as they could. This was my first time joining the party, and I got 6 items sent out. It seemed like a good start.

Some of the partiers have already announced that some of their submissions have sold. Good for them; I'm happy for them.

My own 'luck' has been somewhat less. One item was politely rejected with a form letter. Oh, well, I just picked another market and sent it out again.

A second item was also rejected, but this one garnered a personal letter, complete with the problems that editor saw in my offering, AND an invitation to submit something else! This was more like it! This gave me something to work on, problems to eradicate in my writing, and at the same time, hope for a future with this market. It was ALMOST as good as selling the story! But not quite.

This also wasn't as clear-cut as simply finding a new market and sending my story off again. No, it left me with two things to do. One, I had to rewrite that story before I found a new market and sent it off again. And two, I had to find a story to send back to this market.

And #2 needed to be done first, because it had a deadline, which isn't far off. It didn't take me long to figure out what story to send off to this editor, but when I opened the most recent file, just to give a quick polish – I found it wasn't quite as 'done' as I'd been thinking it was. As long as I was working on it, I might as well tweak the story line a bit, make it fit this market's desires just a bit more. So, with one eye on a fast-approaching deadline, I am (frantically) rewriting, while occasionally looking for a new market for the original story that started this whole thing. Can't complain I have nothing to do!

On another note, did I tell you I've started writing book reviews for sfreader.com? It seemed like a natural progression, although I've quickly learned you read a little differently when you are reading as a reviewer than you do as a normal reader. A few weeks ago, I decided to take a break from reading sf and fantasy and picked up a western from the library. It's been a while since I read a western, but I finished it last night, and I'm about to start my next book for sfreader.com. I've just been wondering, today, if there was some place that accepts reviews of westerns? I may have to look into that.

See ya next week. Trudy