Back in Business
Back in June I wrote a gut-wrenching essay about dealing with Sammie’s cancer and declining health. At least it was gut-wrenching to write. I hope it has some emotional impact on the reader, too.
Anyhow, I submitted it for an anthology for cat lovers, was informed that it had made the finals, happily signed the contract and waited.
A couple weeks ago, I received notice that, while I had made the final 60, I did NOT make the cut for the final 50. Bummer. But such is life in the publishing world. You get rejected, you polish the piece a little more, and you submit it somewhere else.
I have to confess, this is one piece I was hoping to see make it to print. AND I really didn’t want to have to re-visit it. It was hard enough writing it the first time.
But I am back at work this morning, as I promised myself. And I figured I might as well start off my return to writing by facing those demons again. Besides, I found there is another cat lovers anthology in the works.
So I did it. I just revised Sammie’s story. The hardest part was changing it to past tense. At the time I wrote it, she was still with me, although failing. Now, she’s been gone for over two months, but she still resides in a special spot in my heart. And working on that story brought me to tears all over again.
But it’s done and thanks to the marvels of electronic submissions, it’s back in the slush pile, waiting for review.
And as for me, I’m back in business.
Anyhow, I submitted it for an anthology for cat lovers, was informed that it had made the finals, happily signed the contract and waited.
A couple weeks ago, I received notice that, while I had made the final 60, I did NOT make the cut for the final 50. Bummer. But such is life in the publishing world. You get rejected, you polish the piece a little more, and you submit it somewhere else.
I have to confess, this is one piece I was hoping to see make it to print. AND I really didn’t want to have to re-visit it. It was hard enough writing it the first time.
But I am back at work this morning, as I promised myself. And I figured I might as well start off my return to writing by facing those demons again. Besides, I found there is another cat lovers anthology in the works.
So I did it. I just revised Sammie’s story. The hardest part was changing it to past tense. At the time I wrote it, she was still with me, although failing. Now, she’s been gone for over two months, but she still resides in a special spot in my heart. And working on that story brought me to tears all over again.
But it’s done and thanks to the marvels of electronic submissions, it’s back in the slush pile, waiting for review.
And as for me, I’m back in business.
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