For the first time, in what I hope will be a long line of requests, I got a request for a revise and resubmit. While I would have preferred a “We love this and are willing to pay you a million dollars to print it right now” LOL I am definitely pleased with what I did get.

I was inspired to write a short story last week. When I say inspired I mean it truly came to me and I typed and typed and typed. I typed over my nursing baby’s head! That is how dedicated I was to this story. It’s an inspirational, which isn’t something I was expecting but there it was. When I finished I was a complete emotional wreck. I didn’t even think about anything, I spell-checked, did a couple more read throughs and sent it off. I worried that if I sat on it too long or thought about it too much I would chicken out so I just sent it. I received my revise and resubmit the next day. I was almost scared to open the email (see a trend here? Things that scare me I must do or maybe I’m just a wuss? LOL) but when I did I was so excited. This pub is so nice to deal with. Very kind in both compliments on the story and in their revision requests.

Originally 5200 words, the story is now sitting at 8500 with the revisions. At first I was worried that adding so much would dilute the effect that I wanted to have with this story but the pub had wanted less abrupt transitions and they were right. In the process of trying to keep my short story short, I had chopped out some of what I thought was extraneous but was actually needed to keep the emotional attachment to the characters.

Again, I did the work, read it over, had someone else read it over and sent it. This story needed me not to spend too much time thinking on it or I may have turned it into something longer. I may have put too much stuff in it. This was not anything I ever expected to write and it has pieces of me and pieces of people I care about in it.

I hope that, if it is published, people will be able to find some healing in it. Or perhaps, and even better, hope.