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Nov. 15th, 2009 03:53 amSo. I've blogged, I've wrote peoples' term papers, I've written my own school papers, I've done under the table writing for my mother in law, for the local newspaper. I won some writing contests when I was in elementary school and got into one of those vanity publication anthologies, with a poem, when I was 12. It's all very "big whoop", if you know what I mean. I have ALL THIS completed Real Writing writing that just...sits on my hard drive.
Tonight I actually formally submitted my first piece of writing for publication. By email query, with it all attached as a document, and. Well.
Three hours later, I open my inbox - IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT - and there's an acceptance letter from the editor.
WHAT?!
I've been bracing myself for sending out hundreds of queries with nothing but rejections because that's how publishing is, and trying to get used to the idea that perseverance is a big part of being a writer. This is nuts.
It's not "a big deal". It's a little 350 word thing for a trade journal, tailored specifically for one of their ongoing features. It only pays copies. And yet...
...
!
So here we go.
Being published in Midwifery Today is a huge credit from the perspective that it's another little piece of clout in my query letter for a c-section book.
What I'm really working on right now is querying agents who represent in the memoir genre, because I have this old thing, Cracked, that I have drug back out, along with this new book I'm writing, that I really believe in actually, about all the ways surgery effects you that nobody talks about. The validation and exploration of what it means - having been cut open and sewn shut, especially over and over. It's narrative and informal and I really think it's good. I want to write a real, educational book on birth choices and avoiding intervention that's marketed towards pregnant women, something much less tongue and cheek, and I have a title and a chapter by chapter plan for that...but I think I have to get through the former before I can stand to delve too deeply into the latter.
Also my collection of short stories is almost done. And as soon as I can get anyone to bite into one of the nonfiction books, I'm going to whip that thing out, because, well, I really think it's good. And if I actually can finish and sell that...
I think often about how funny it is that I really ramble on with no editing here, and don't know how anybody even believes I call myself a writer :p I don't think I'm the best writer of all time. But I do think I'm good...when I'm in that zone, channeling it and making it happen. Which is really not how my lj entries go.
So. Bed, Mass, query agent, Grant going to get my brother while I educate the children and clean the house, bed.
Tonight I actually formally submitted my first piece of writing for publication. By email query, with it all attached as a document, and. Well.
Three hours later, I open my inbox - IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT - and there's an acceptance letter from the editor.
WHAT?!
I've been bracing myself for sending out hundreds of queries with nothing but rejections because that's how publishing is, and trying to get used to the idea that perseverance is a big part of being a writer. This is nuts.
It's not "a big deal". It's a little 350 word thing for a trade journal, tailored specifically for one of their ongoing features. It only pays copies. And yet...
...
!
So here we go.
Being published in Midwifery Today is a huge credit from the perspective that it's another little piece of clout in my query letter for a c-section book.
What I'm really working on right now is querying agents who represent in the memoir genre, because I have this old thing, Cracked, that I have drug back out, along with this new book I'm writing, that I really believe in actually, about all the ways surgery effects you that nobody talks about. The validation and exploration of what it means - having been cut open and sewn shut, especially over and over. It's narrative and informal and I really think it's good. I want to write a real, educational book on birth choices and avoiding intervention that's marketed towards pregnant women, something much less tongue and cheek, and I have a title and a chapter by chapter plan for that...but I think I have to get through the former before I can stand to delve too deeply into the latter.
Also my collection of short stories is almost done. And as soon as I can get anyone to bite into one of the nonfiction books, I'm going to whip that thing out, because, well, I really think it's good. And if I actually can finish and sell that...
I think often about how funny it is that I really ramble on with no editing here, and don't know how anybody even believes I call myself a writer :p I don't think I'm the best writer of all time. But I do think I'm good...when I'm in that zone, channeling it and making it happen. Which is really not how my lj entries go.
So. Bed, Mass, query agent, Grant going to get my brother while I educate the children and clean the house, bed.
