There’s nothing like instant gratification.
That’s not just my personal flaw is it? I now consider myself a writer, at least most days. The novel is what it is, and at the moment – that means DONE. So now what?
I wrote my first short story recently. It came from a challenge on a Sci-fi writer’s blog. A news story out of Alaska reported on a 15 mile long hairy, organic blog floating off the coast. “Not an oil slick,” they said. The blog-mistress directed- write a flash story about what you know about this modern day blob. I did, and now I am thinking I want to polish it and publish it. But is it good enough? I stumbled on to a site called Review Fuse and here is how it works. You up load your story. Then you get assigned 4 stories to read and critique. Once you have done your homework, the site sends you back 3 critiques of your work from other writers. Pretty neat.
So, I bravely sent in my story this morning. It’s called “Excuse me, Waiter, there’s a Space Elevator in my Primordial Soup.” I know. Long title for a short story.
By 5 PM I had all three reviews back! How about that? The site asks reviewers to give points on plot, characters, dialogue, setting and so forth, and then gives an average of the scores as your total. My scores? Thanks for asking. I got a 7, 10 and an 8. Not bad for the first time out of the gate. The lady who gave me the 10 is my new best friend, sorry to tell Trish. It really made my whole day that a complete stranger liked my tale.
I think most authors are like me, woefully desperate for the approval of others. This site was useful in my ongoing quest for ego stroking.
ANYWAY – to keep my mind off the non-activity of my search for an agent to rep my novel, I’m going to submit my story to a few sci-fi mags and see if I can make $50.
It’s a dream…
