Label it under process

Time to payoff on the current title: Join the journey…

I have one short story, Kirby’s Dive, circulating for publication. I reworked this baby countless times over 2+ years, with help from writing workshops and literary friends. Finally I have a piece that upon rereading, I don’t feel compelled to edit.

This is the first time my confidence around a story can’t be swayed by rejection. So, this is my new earmark of completion. I feel like a salesman who believes 100% in his product. To get to “yes” just requires more sales calls.

All you writer bums out there are shaking your heads. Yeah, yeah. I know, this is 101 stuff. But when I reflect on a decade of sharing work, after each rejection I lost faith in my story’s appeal.

Kirby’s Dive was sent off to 10 literary journals back in January. (Researching journals that accept simultaneous submissions was a breeze thanks to Duotrope.) To date I received six rejections. So today I’m sending it off to six more—thus our blog topic.

Ten seems like a good, if not totally arbitrary, number. The trick for me now is to have 10 stories circulating with 10 journals. (Did I mention this is easy thanks to Duotrope.)

One day we’ll see this blog entry again, when I link back to it upon acceptance.