I swear I’m not a shiftless writer!
So, a few days ago I wrote about finally finishing one of the short stories I’ve been working on for an unholy five years. In that time, I did the character development workshop, made a few resultant revisions and solicited feedback from one of my favourite writers (and a dear friend) as well as my husband (not being a writer, he provides my “Everyman” angle).
My husband gave me his feedback this afternoon, and by the end of the work day I had it sent off to a magazine. Sorry Teri, I know I’d sent you a second draft – I hope it didn’t make you vomit! I just had to do something with it, get it out of my life for a while. I was talking to a friend of mine on the weekend about how frustrating it is to write short stories, because there is absolutely nothing stopping you from chipping away at it anytime the fancy strikes. With a novel, I imagine the sheer size would be daunting, or the possibility of affecting elements further in the novel one would have to then hunt for. Not so with a story, at least for me. I need to learn to just put a period on the thing, underline it a few times, seal it, notarize it, put an anvil on top of it.
It was kind of sad when I went to enter the submission in my Submission Log spreadsheet and actually had to use my computer’s search function to find it. Guys, I hadn’t opened it since December. 2007. I know I was actually writing in that time since then – freelance work – but I still felt a modicum of healthy, invigorating shame.
Oh, and I just realized I completely forgot to use my pen name on the submission. Maybe that’s a good thing. I kind of wasn’t 100% behind it anyway. I’m so weird about issues re: privacy, coworkers Googling me. Maybe it’s an unnecessary worry. So they find out I’m a writer. I suppose there are worse things!
Category: Fiction Writing/Books, General
[...] quite well. For me, it got me thinking about pen names in general. Some of you may remember my own failed attempt at a pen name. Basically, I could never remember to use it, even though it was just my intials, “SK,” [...]