Looming Deadline Follow-up

This post is a follow-up to last week’s post, Looming Deadlines.

The deadline has come and gone. And I submitted a story.

Clare C. Marshall of Faery Ink Press messaged me that she was in the final stretch of her own story for the submission. And, with that spurring, I got a case of the “I want to be in that club, too!”

So I made a battle plan.

It wasn’t the story I had dreamed up for the anthology call. That idea is still in the to-be-written pile. But I edited a story that I thought might be able to work.

And I worked it.

And then I contacted our own Inkette Jessica Corra. “Can you edit/crit a story tonight?” And she said yes.

So I jumped the hurdles in my first edit and then passed the story baton to her.

I twiddled my thumbs, waiting to hear back.

“OKAY I GET IT!” I e-mailed her. “THIS IS HOW IT FEELS TO HAVE A BOOK WITH AN AGENT. BUT I NEEDS EDITS! In less than 5 hours.”

“GAH I DIDN’T KNOW *THAT*,” Jessica replied. And killed my story faster.

The baton came back and I sprinted, hauling ass to tighten the beginning, add context, rearrange dialogue.

I shoved the story into Submittable and fell, panting.

As I lie on my back, I’m half excited to hear back and half dreading it. But that is the life of the author who submits things, isn’t it?

Moral of the story?

Have more story drafts on the go. Because having a base makes facing deadlines easier.

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