Deadlines feel something like trains to me. There is the bullet train deadlines, the ones you don’t know about until they’re on you, and the far scarier freight train deadlines, where you can feel it coming long before it reachs. You can hear them coming, but then the ground shakes and the noise gets louder as they get closer and closer. Inevitably baring down.
But then comes the moments after the submission is actually made, which I find far more frightening then anything that came before. Because the event horizon has been crossed, and there’s no turning back – any mistakes are there to stay. Until that point things are fluid and can be changed, but after…
I submitted my story to Sword and Sorceress 24 on Friday. It wasn’t the story I was originally going to send, but the one I’d been writing wasn’t close to finished. The story I submitted was one of the few short story I’ve ever written without a specfic market in mind, so it feels strange to me. I’m not a natural short story writer at all, my ideas always seem to unfold into something larger and longer and I’m always struggling to stay under wordcount limits on my short fiction. I also habitually run up against the deadline no matter how hard I try, which does nothing for my nerves.
I already have my response back from my S&S submission. It was a encouraging rejection, which can be sumed up as – “good story, but it didn’t have what I was looking for.” It’s always nice to hear that my stories are readable from someone new. :)