One by one the reading periods close and I let them without submitting. Yes, there’s all year to write and edit and get them in well within the time period, but I am a procrastinator and don’t always have something I’m really confident about to send out as the deadlines loom, warn, alert, approach, and finally pass.
This time I had three; one that I’ve sent late last season to only a few places, and two new stories that I was really excited about (and one that I thought was good but even I knew it wasn’t publishable) but just not secure enough to boldly depend on my gut instinct. I did send them out to a couple places, then as confidence waned I begged a friend to read them and with a less than enthusiastic response, sort of ignored them. Now I’m trying to analyze why she didn’t like them and see if it isn’t just a case of not being her preferred style of story or if they really aren’t what I thought they were or could be. But I just don’t have my heart in it anymore.
And so, the cycle continues.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology