Yesterday I sent out my first short story submission in seven years!!!!!

It was much harder to do than I’d expected. 🙂 One of my goals is to start trying to sell my short stories. That seems like a simple concept, and having just sold three at the anthology workshop definitely helped me feel that the quality of my writing is at the right level. But it took a lot of willpower – and far more time than it should have – to make the last few changes to my story. Then when I was just about done I realized this particular market calls for longer submissions (3,000 words minimum) and my story was about 2,400 words. Ack!!!!!

I took a look at what I’d written, but there was no way I could add 600 words without changing the story into something different, and I didn’t want to do that. I checked the magazine’s website and they have a note saying a little under 3k is acceptable. I don’t know if 600 words under is too short, but I decided to give it a shot. The worst they can do is say no, right? And so … I made my first submission since 2009!

This did cut into my novel-writing time, but it was important to me to achieve this goal. I have another story I’d like to submit to a different market, but it will have to wait until I make a little more progress on the novel. Right now I’m going through the comments from my writing group on the last six or so chapters. I’m about two-thirds of the way through.

I love my writing group. They’re great at pointing out things in a constructive, positive way. With this particular story, I also get the benefit of having feedback from one writer who knows a lot about Celtic mythology, and one who knows very little. This is a big help since the main characters are a faery and a selkie. 🙂

The book cover is just about done. I’m itching to post it here, but I’ll wait until I have the absolutely final version … even though I don’t want to wait!!!

And last … I’m going to start putting a free short story up on a password-protected page on my website. I’ll send the password out in my newsletter, so if you’re interested please sign up! 🙂 Don’t worry, I don’t send the newsletter out very often – just when there’s something to announce. But I’d like to have something special for people who are interested in my writing, and this seems like a good way to do that. I am planning on making this live at the beginning of April, and will post a different story every season, so that would be four times/year.

Now I’d better get some work done before the dogs wake up from their nap!