A Week of Submission

No, we're not talking BDSM here, we're talking about sending your little creations out into the big wide world of publishers and opening yourself up to the very real possibility of rejection.

Gulp!

The first story to leave the nest was Jilly's Folly; it was written and doing nothing sat on my hard drive so I sent it out to test the water. Plus it kept tapping on my shoulder and distracting me from my other projects, just like it did last weekend when it demanded I wrote the story down in the first place. I'm not convinced it's what the publisher (a weekly magazine) wants, but I won't know unless I try.

So, with that one out of the way, it was time to get back to Damsel in Deceit, right? After all, the deadline is ticking...

Wrong.

If you've been following my Facebook page, you'll know that Tilly and Dean from Christmas is Cancelled have been on my case too. They were a bit upset that I'd been ignoring them for weeks and didn't want to stay in their box until next year, they wanted to join in this year's party. I went onto Breathless Press (BP) to purchase some of the books from their 3rd birthday celebrations and couldn't resist peeking at the current call-outs. And there it was, the deadline for the Holiday Cheer call-out, and it said September 30th. The damage was done, I had to give it a go.

Thankfully, I happened to mention it online and the actual BP editor for this particular call-out informed me that the deadline for submissions was August 31st and not September 30th - that gave me just four days to get my manuscript ship-shape instead of thirty-four - not to mention I had prior commitments during those four days as well. Did I really stand a chance of getting it ready in time? Probably not. I'd pretty much insisted Tilly & Dean leave me alone when the editor suggested I send in what I've got anyway.

Several late nights and early starts later, a million cups of coffee, adapting my plans for my girly night out to being a girly take-away at home with me tippety-tappeting in the corner, oh and keeping my poor children housebound and ignoring the housework... I finally hit send. Christmas is Cancelled has gone and I'm feeling somewhat maternal about it. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to make some of the enhancements I wanted to make but I decided to get something 'mostly ship-shape' sent out rather than regret not sending anything at all.

Now I'm caught up in the waiting game but the BP editor is hoping to get through all the Christmas submissions over the course of the week and let everybody know ASAP. By the middle of the week, I know my nerves will jangle every time an email comes into my author inbox.

So what about Damsel in Distress? Well... you see... I'm not sure what to do about it now.

I was all geared up to try for the Avon call (read about it here) but the more I delved into the characters, the more words I wanted to be able to use; 25,000 words just doesn't seem enough. Plus it has already become a series in my mind, with ideas for Damsel in Despair, Damsel in Denial, Damsel in Dispute... you get the idea. It looks like I have a decision to make and quickly.

Aside from that, both kids go back to school next week so I finally can get back into some kind of routine, including regular time for writing; now I just need to decide what to work on first...