Published!

A few posts back I said I would be okay if I never got published - but I lied. I really, really wanted one of my stories in print and today it happened!

Rose Red Review    Path Before Giants

Rose Red Review is an online literary journal and has accepted my short story "Path Before Giants" for publication. I am thrilled to say it feels wonderful. I wrote this 5 years ago and have revised it completely 3 or 4 times since the original write. I got input on it and changed it, then decided to change it some more, then changed it back, then let it sit for a long, long time.

Writing takes a long, long time. Those authors who are able to just churn out good stuff day after day (not crap, anyone can write crap day after day) are freaks of nature. I have a few good sentences a week and have to go back and clean the stall of all the piles of crap that end up among small shiny bits of good stuff. To me, it is incredibly worth it to have put all that effort in to a published work. My sweat is all over that thing.

And - not every one will like it! That's the crap shoot (why does crap keep popping up?) of writing - different tastes dictate that even great writing such as Shakespeare is not universally loved. THIS is what I am okay with - really. I am a picky, picky reader so I understand the luck part of writing. You have to find something of good enough quality to print, then hope that whoever reads it likes it.

I love me some statistics and I thought I would make a comparison to illustrate. Red Rose Review is online only, published 4 times a year and accepts 22% of the submissions it receives for publication. More selective publications like Glimmer Train accept 0.22%.

I've recently been college shopping with my son and the statistics for acceptance struck me as being somewhat similar - and more well known. For example, Stanford accepts 6% and Cal Poly (SLO) accepts 37%. Stanford is harder to get in to, but Cal Poly isn't a cake walk. (Oh yea! Let's switch to cake - much better than crap). Thus the similarities to publishing. Rose Red Review is not the hardest publication to get into, but it is still merit based. It is an incredible amount of work and reading for the two ladies who collect and publish the journal. I admire this effort and am so happy to be included.

My thanks to the editor, Larissa Nash, for giving me the chance to put my words out and please give her publication a read.

Thanks to all of you who have read and critiqued, read and enjoyed, read and disliked, but loved me enough to tell me it was good. I need all of these things and you all rock!

Peace,

Jo