Back from the Residency
I came back from the residency excited, inspired, happy, and completely unready to return to my regular nine-to-five job. We were given the week off from assignments, and that helped a lot in giving me time with my wife and cats. Going back to my desk job, though, almost felt like some sort of punishment: “He has seen the Bright Light of the Divine! Chain him to . . . the Desk!”
For better or worse, reality quickly reasserted itself. All was not lost though; like any mystical experience I returned from the moment of enlightenment a changed man. I saw improvement already in my writing, and also the directions it could grow and evolve.
It could be argued that I still sometimes overwrite my prose. Whether this is deliberate or accidental in my blog posts is left as an exercise for the reader.
Among the points of inspiration was the realization that I should not be waiting to begin submitting stories for publication. In fact, Flash Fiction Online has already turned down one of my pieces (which is fine, since it may suit Glimmer Train’s style better anyway).
It was one of the speakers in the Profession of Writing class at the residency, a title=Kelli Russell Agodon href=http://www.agodon.com/Kelli Russell Agodon/a I think, who said, “When someone rejects one of your stories, all it means is that you’ve eliminated them from the list of publishers you were considering.” I’m pretty sure that’s paraphrased, not a direct quote, but I like the sentiment: all a rejection letter means is that someone else gets to publish the story.
Oh, and submit something else!
