Lesson learned

Gah! Okay, I sent off the flash fiction Soul Food to Shadowed Realms as per their guidelines. I put in a cover letter with my submission and was lucky enough to get a receipt reply from the editor. Woot!!

I did everything they asked, name, e-mail address, writing credits - or lack thereof - and that's where I got nipped.

FYI people: don't put anything negative in!

We're lucky enough in this country that some editors will take the time to make personal replies. The negative I put in was that I had submitted poetry that was "rightfully rejected" by a newspaper. In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have. After all, that 'poetry' was written by me more than twenty years ago and was full of emotional angst, piss and vinegar, and - for me - experimental expression. (My parents loved it, since it was about them.) No one else would find it so.

At the time, I was confused about what I could write. I knew writing was why I was here, but not what. Novels were beyond me, short stories weren't - short, that is - and I simply couldn't finish them. Poetry seemed like a goer.

At the time, I was jobless, moneyless and almost friendless. Loneliness was my constant companion in a city where I knew virtually no-one and I was one step away from the street. Poetry seemed my only outlet; bad though it was, it still filled a need and kept me hopeful of better things to come.

It came down to a fundamental belief that if my writing gave me a sense of contentment, it didn't matter if no-one else liked it, or approved, it was for me; and I revelled in it.

So here I am, twenty years later, changed in more ways that I can say, still writing, though now it's novels - how I managed to finish a book, I'll write about later - producing short stories that I can 'down-size' to flash fiction, and have the confidence to submit them; although that's scarily new to me.

Whether Shadowed Realms accept or reject my story, Angela Challis has done me an enormous favour in sending me a personal note.

To quote some of the e-mail: Thanks for clearly taking the time to follow the Shadowed Realms guidelines. You can understand why this is important, if not, why the hell are you thinking?

Please don't talk yourself down in your cover letter; see above.

There is no shame in having no writing credits. In fact, it is an editor's dream to be the first one to 'discover' a clearly gifted author. I have a number of authors published for the first time in Shadowed Realms, and I am very proud to say so as I believe (not surprisingly) that their stories are damn fantastic. Whether other editors have the same belief, I don't know, but this gave me a warm fuzzy.

As I said, whether they publish my story or not, this kind of courtesy will keep me writing and submitting.

Anyone else had 'good' feedback and advice?