I was already having a bad day...
...revising a paper from something that was not very good but adequate and something I didn't mind too much having my name attached to into something that I am embarrassed to claim but which hopefully jumps the requisite hoops, so when I received an email whose subject line indicated it had the decision on a piece of fiction I'd submitted to an anthology back in August, my thought as I opened it was "Eh, they didn't want it. That's okay. I knew it was a long shot, it isn't really exactly on the chosen topic."
So I was shocked and delighted to read:
Thank you for submitting a story for the forthcoming Nothing anthology. We really enjoyed reading your submission, and would like to accept your story 'The Sum of Our Memories' for inclusion in the collection.
Suddenly, having devoted much of the last three months to working on a novel doesn't seem as silly a way to spend my time. This is my first piece of fiction to be published since...wow, has it really been since the essay competition I entered when I was 10? I won a 10-speed bike and got my short story published in the hosting society's newsletter. I've had some poems along the way, but this might actually be my first "real" piece of published fiction.
--
And on the topic of "all writing counts", yesterday I received an inquiry from the Surnames Society of Australia asking if they could reprint one of my DMNES blog posts in their newsletter. It's an informal, non-profit thing, so they were apologetic that they couldn't pay me -- but honestly, I put it up on the web for free, if they want to reprint it for their readers, I'm happy to! So I briefly rewrote it a bit, to make it less blog posty, and send it off to them this morning.
Guess I need to update my "projects" spreadsheet.
So I was shocked and delighted to read:
Thank you for submitting a story for the forthcoming Nothing anthology. We really enjoyed reading your submission, and would like to accept your story 'The Sum of Our Memories' for inclusion in the collection.
Suddenly, having devoted much of the last three months to working on a novel doesn't seem as silly a way to spend my time. This is my first piece of fiction to be published since...wow, has it really been since the essay competition I entered when I was 10? I won a 10-speed bike and got my short story published in the hosting society's newsletter. I've had some poems along the way, but this might actually be my first "real" piece of published fiction.
--
And on the topic of "all writing counts", yesterday I received an inquiry from the Surnames Society of Australia asking if they could reprint one of my DMNES blog posts in their newsletter. It's an informal, non-profit thing, so they were apologetic that they couldn't pay me -- but honestly, I put it up on the web for free, if they want to reprint it for their readers, I'm happy to! So I briefly rewrote it a bit, to make it less blog posty, and send it off to them this morning.
Guess I need to update my "projects" spreadsheet.