Kelsey

Back in May, I sent off a short story to "New Love Stories Magazine" (It's Off), with my fingers crossed, but not really expecting anything.  And today I got:

Thank you for sending your story "Just Kiss Me". We have carefully read your story and it is under consideration. We have had a large number of well written stories submitted so your story may not be considered for publication immediately.

I wasn't quite sure what this meant, so I asked a friend who's written for this magazine for a translation and she said:

YEAH!!! This is good news. For real. Congratulations. They will tell you outright if they don't want your work. They have been swamped with entries.

Oh!  **letting translation sink in**  This means they didn't reject my story....  and this is a real magazine that pays real money. (Read more)

Had a fun coincidence happen with the writing of Kelsey's short story.  I needed to know what Kelsey's condo looked like, so I wandered the web looking for condos in Chicago's loop.  I happened onto a site that had floor plans for several of Chicago's residential high-rises, so I happily wandered that site for a while, and found the perfect condo.

Two-story penthouse, glorious view, only a few blocks north of the loop, perfect room set-up... all-in-all it's exactly what Kelsey would be living in... and I had a floor plan!  I couldn't ask for anything more.

Yet, for the fun of it, I wanted some more pictures to see if I could get a better idea of the view.  So I wandered the condo for-sale sites looking for condos in that building that might be for-sale and might have better pictures of the view. (Read more)

My short story has been reviewed (thanks everybody) and edited, and I just hit "send" on the email submission.

Scary, yet exciting.  :-)

They say 10-12 weeks before I hear, so it's hurry-up-and-wait time.

But I think it's neat that I finally got something done and sent out, even if it's just a short story.

I feel like my muse has finally returned, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get my novels moving again.  But tomorrow and Friday are work days, which needs to come first... at least for a while.

It may seem like much for a supposed author to have finished a short story, but considering how long it's been since I've written anything new (October for those of you who are counting), this short story is big to me.

And, as soon as my beta-readers approve, it's going to be submitted to a real live magazine. 

Which will be my first submission in... well... it'll actually be my only first real submission.  My only other submission was to submit chapers of my 1st manuscript so I could get rejected so I could get my RWA PRO pin.  I don't feel I actually submitted that manuscript because I knew it needed more work.

So... big deal for me.  And my first reader has come back and says it's a great story and made good suggestions, so I'm looking forward to see what the rest say.