five youngest sons in the wild
At the moment, I have five pieces of fiction out to four different markets. I feel both pleased and rather amazed about this. It's good, I think, because it means that if nothing else I actually have finished five pieces of fiction -- finished them well enough to feel comfortable, insofar as one ever is comfortable, putting them in an envelope with my name sewn on, and sending them out into the world to seek fortune.
I know I'm expecting rejections from most of the venues that are currently holding my pieces, possibly from all of them. But the pieces exist now; they are what they are; I finished them to their own respective deadlines, and I can keep on putting them in new envelopes and trying somewhere else.
If I have other reason to be glad, it is because working on and finishing a piece makes me feel light as air, and happy. In the past week, I think, I have tight-revised two previously finished pieces, revised-for-submitting a third, and finished writing and revising a fourth one just today. I have put three envelopes in the mail; they contain four stories. Also in the past week, I have received two rejections; but sending them out again reinvigorates me -- it renews me! It gives me the energy to keep on going, and (or) to start again.
So then! This evening I am happy.
I expect to hear from one of the places with one of my stories this week; and then, either for woe or otherwise, I will have only four stories out again.* But I am revising another, with the help of input from friends, and, sure as it rains, sometime next month out the door another one will go... :)
*(There are also three clutches of poetry out there. But I have less attachment to my poetry, which is one reason I find it easier to produce, and to send away for judgement.)
I know I'm expecting rejections from most of the venues that are currently holding my pieces, possibly from all of them. But the pieces exist now; they are what they are; I finished them to their own respective deadlines, and I can keep on putting them in new envelopes and trying somewhere else.
If I have other reason to be glad, it is because working on and finishing a piece makes me feel light as air, and happy. In the past week, I think, I have tight-revised two previously finished pieces, revised-for-submitting a third, and finished writing and revising a fourth one just today. I have put three envelopes in the mail; they contain four stories. Also in the past week, I have received two rejections; but sending them out again reinvigorates me -- it renews me! It gives me the energy to keep on going, and (or) to start again.
So then! This evening I am happy.
I expect to hear from one of the places with one of my stories this week; and then, either for woe or otherwise, I will have only four stories out again.* But I am revising another, with the help of input from friends, and, sure as it rains, sometime next month out the door another one will go... :)
*(There are also three clutches of poetry out there. But I have less attachment to my poetry, which is one reason I find it easier to produce, and to send away for judgement.)