It's been six weeks since I first submitted that story and...

...I now have not one, not two but three (count 'em!) rejection slips to my name. Apparently I'm not having much luck finding a publication that needs a story featuring a wisecracking penguin with a Bronx accent and its eyes scratched out. Go figure.

Still, I shall continue to persevere. There's always a chance that somebody, somewhere, is desperate for more penguin-based fiction. And since the alternative is to post it here, to be read by maybe three people, it's not like I'm missing out on much. (The three of you who would have read it may feel differently, of course...).

In the meantime, when I'm not sending that one back out to be rejected somewhere else, I'm working on other things. The novel continues to be very slowly edited, there's another short story gradually coming together, and I'm currently obsessing over a project that I already know won't go anywhere (as opposed to merely suspecting such things).

The idea in question, unfortunately, is one of those that really needs to be a comic. Prose simply wouldn't do it justice; it needs big, bold visuals to tell the story properly. And I can't do big, bold visuals. If I try really, really hard, I can produce something that's about half-decent, but it's just not worth it for the amount of stress and effort it requires. And while I know one or two people who can draw, I doubt any of them would be interested in taking on a project of this magnitude with no guarantee that it would ever be seen by more than three people (hi, three people! I love you!).

I'll have to work on it regardless, though. I need to get it out of my head and pinned down on a page before I can move on to something else.

And if you know anyone who might fancy drawing 120 pages of quirky, grim superhero stuff just for the lulz, do send them my way.

Inviting Rejection

I'm sitting on the sofa in my living room right now, trying not to hyperventilate.  This is because I just pushed a button on a webpage marked 'Submit'.

I've sent a story out into the wild.  Not just to cosy, friendly beta-readers, or into the rarely-visited walled-garden that is this blog, but actually into the wider world.  I've submitted it for consideration to an actual publishing-type place.  Despite having been writing for years, I've never actually done that before.

There's a very simple reason for this: nothing I've written has ever been good enough, in my head at least.  Everything always needs more work, further polishing, just one last tweak before it can be sent out.  Except the more I tweak things the less I tend to like them, as a rule.

There are two reasons why this story is different.  One is that Friendy Beta-Reader the First told me this story really deserved better than to just be posted on the blog, despite originating in another silly writing prompt like 'Lavendar and the Random Acolyte'.  The other is that Friendly Beta-Reader the Second, despite only really taking up writing for NaNoWriMo last November, is already submitting things out there.  Good things.  And if he gets something published before I've even worked up the courage to submit then I will be, as the cool kids say, 'well jell'.

It may be petty, it may be foolish, but at least it's stirred me to action.  I have a story out there, hoping to make its fortune in the wider world.  And when the inevitable rejection letter comes, I shall bear it proudly and call myself a real writer at last.