Submissions Away

Two more out the door.

Mobile has been submitted to the AlienSkin contest. If I try and do any further alterations, I'll be going around in circles. I love the story as it is. I'm now placing it in the same category as Dark Rose and Too Late the Rain--it will take a very strong argument for me to change anything ever again.

Idolatry has also been submitted, but not before a minor heart attack. In filling out the entry form sent to me by the course coordinator for my Diploma, the very last line before I signed it stated the deadline for submissions was the 30th of May 2008! I did a double take. I was working away under the false belief that I had till July. I was devastated.

I logged onto the net and hunted down the online entry form to be 100% sure. Just as well I did. The latest entry form has a deadline of the 10th of July 2008. Now that's more like it. The two forms are exactly the same except for this one line. Phew.

Idolatry is also highly unlikely to ever be changed again.

These five stories: Grimoire; Too Late the Rain; Dark Rose; Mobile; Idolatry--will now do the rounds as is until I find a place for them to call home. The process involves the creation of a submission path, listing the best paying, highest reputation publications at the top and working my way down to copy only paying publications of note. I work all the way through the submission path with each story until it's sold.

If it doesn't find a home, it goes into a file. As new anthologies come into the market, I'll check to see if I have something that works under that theme. If I do, out she goes again.

The last story in this batch is System Failure. This received a full revision today. It will go off to The Teacher tonight. If it comes back in time (no pressure), it will be posted on TPN this weekend. This story is now fast approaching 5000 words. It is written in ten scenes which could be a difficult sell for a short story. If this proves to be the case, then it will need more of the scenes joined together. This will require additional writing making the story grow very quickly past 6000 words. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. We'll see what the critiquers have to say.

Last item up for discussion tonight: I received a reply back from my lecturer in regards to my next module. It looks promising although, he put a qualification on the end, as he normally does, which could throw a spanner in the works. I've traded emails and now await his next response. I really want to learn a lot in the article based module, as becoming a freelance writer could depend heavily on having that string added to my bow. Stay tuned.

Please offer up good thoughts to your divine being on my behalf that I gain good results from my submissions.

I shall do the same for you.

BT