Short List, Long Wait

I had wonderful news a couple of weeks ago - my tiny little story The City made it to the shortlist in the Concept Sci-fi 150-word flash-fiction competition. For someone who has only just this year started seriously trying to get published, getting on this shortlist was a major achievement and a huge morale-booster.

But now I have to wait to see whether I win or not.

Waiting is the curse of the writing classes. You write, it's great. You revise, it's not so bad. You send it off, you wait, it's awful! Sometimes you wait days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months. Months and months and months sometimes. And for what? Usually a rejection. The waiting is so bad sometimes that even a rejection feels like good news because at least the waiting is over.

The really bad thing about being serious about getting published is that you have to keep sending your work out there even after it has been knocked back. You don't get your rejection letter and say, 'Ah well, that's that I suppose,' and get on with your life. You immediately find soemwhere else to send your work so that you can spend more weeks waiting. Everything you write is out there being considered. You're not just waiting on one thing for a finite period, you're waiting for loads of things, all the time, forever!

And hoping, hoping that, just this once, it won't be a rejection letter.