Sarah Cass's Blog: Sarah's StoryLines, page 54

Survival Basket

You’ve edited your manuscript to a fine work of art.

You’ve researched where you’re sending it.

You put your ‘baby’ out in the world.

Now what?

Authors, especially first time authors, have these horrifyingly bad-for-your-ego lengths of time where you wait.

Every email you get is hope that it’s “the one” followed by crushing disappointment that it’s spam, or just a family member, or anything other than the agent or publisher you’ve submitted to.

When the agents, or publishers, ask to see more there’s an even worse period.  Now it’s more than the query. They have it all.

Having recently gone through a period like this (will not state whether or not I’m still in one) – I joked about a survival kit, and then got serious.  I asked my friends what they’d put in a survival kit for an author in this position.

Overwhelmingly the answer was…

ALCOHOL.

Huh…go figure.

But we did get a few more fun & creative responses…

Anti-depressants
Man-candy (then again, we can use this all the time, no?)
Chocolate
Barf Bags
A dark corner to put yourself in
A box of tissues for your uncontrollable sobbing
A book called “How to stalk potential editors – the RIGHT way (i.e. don’t be a creep)”
Bath salts
A movie with a kick ass heroine
Video games (b/c those are always awesome)
Tea
Art/Photography – any visual stimulation
The website One Hundred Famous Rejections

I think the most important thing that is missing from this list isn’t something you can put in a basket.

It’s friends who’ve been there.  Who understand when you go to them and rail and cry and whine and let out those frustrations.  Who support you and remind you where you’ve come from and how far you’ve gotten.  Who don’t give up on you, when you’ve given up on yourself.

I’m grateful to have a circle of friends, old and new, that are right there fighting the good fight with me.  That have been where I am, and both support me and offer me words of wisdom and helpful critiques of my work.

So…Mary, Jennifer, Fi, Eden, Sabrina, Ellie and Tonya…thanks for being in my life.  On the days I feel like quitting – so glad I have you around to remind me why I’m where I am…and what’s coming just around the corner.

And lastly, the most important thing I have in my basket.  The world’s most supportive spouse.  Erik…you rock. When I had to make that incredibly difficult decision regarding my novel recently – you helped add in both a voice of reason and of incredible support.

So make up your basket today. Don’t forget that support system.  It means more than all the man-candy and chocolate in the world.

Published.

I’ve been working at this writing thing for a few years now. Always looking for that day when I could go from being ‘writer’ to ‘published author’.

I am notoriously incapable of writing anything shorter than a full length novel.  So I’ve been struggling to get anything out there.

Now I have bridged that gap.

With a piece of flash fiction.

500 words.

Not of romance – oh no.

Psychological horror.

In the June 2012 of The Sirens Call eZine “Obscure Ink” I have a piece.  Page 48 contains my flash fiction piece entitled “I Win.”

Buy it.

Read it.

I might just creep you the hell out.

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Really, it’s $2. Buy it. There’s a ton of amazingly creepy stuff in there.

*~*~*

I won’t be stopping here. While I’m still writing my romance pieces I have another horror short in mind to submit for one of their upcoming anthology open submissions.  I’ve made the leap and now I’m hungrier than ever.