The manuscript is complete. The editor has been hired. Now all I have left are the days, hours, weeks until my turn comes along and I can send the novel off to be picked apart by a professional. Waiting. And after that... more waiting. What does an author do in the meantime? Write short stories. I'm taking Ray Bradbury's advice, at least for the next couple of months. I plan on writing one short story per week until my editor gets back to me with notes on the novel. I hope to

Things are happening. I suppose this is true every day, for every person. Things are happening. For me, things are are happening in my still embryonic writing career. First, I submitted a short story (The One That Came Between) to a publication. I won't hear back for a while, submissions will be accepted until May 1, then they will make the final decisions. It's a long shot. However, the act of submitting something, of opening myself up and allowing a stranger to critique my

The ideas come easily. The self-editing, a joy. I get to relive the stories and the characters. I laugh; I cry. I add details that were missing, I clarify things, I fix errors. I make everything perfect. Or at least I think I do. I have learned so much in the past month of trying to get published, and the first thing I learned was that one should have beta readers go over their work before even thinking about sending it to a publisher. Fine, I think, no big deal, I got nothin