"I've got time for some reading," I said to the cat who had just finished curling up on my lap, so I read through a few of the stories. I realized that each month had a submission theme, and curiosity led me to the submissions page to see what the themes would be for the rest of the year.
October's theme is "Epiphany," which brought about a sort of epiphany of my own. I had a short story ready to go that fit nicely into this theme. Vinyl was written back in January and February for a writing class, and it covered the topic of depression, love, death, and a sudden shift in thinking all in the space of 500ish words. Without any deliberation what so ever, I opened my email, attached the story, and jotted down a quick query email. The process, start to finish, took ten minutes. I hit "send," sat back, and only then did the full reality of what I had just done hit me.
For the first time ever, I submitted something I wrote for publication.
The whole thing happened so fast that I didn't really have time to talk myself out of it, or even weigh the pros and cons, or ask myself if my story would be right for their magazine, or take the time to edit and spit-shine the story before I sent it. My hands did all the work before my brain had a chance to catch on to what was happening. Had I been completely in my right-mind before I went through with this, I may have rethought the line "You have the prestigious honor of being either my first publication or my first rejection. Either way, I will never forget you."
The result, however, was that my personality shone through, and that worked to my advantage. I received a reply from the editor that essentially communicated "Even if you write terrible stories, you write great emails," and she ended with telling me she would read the actual submission and get back to me. I was scared after sending the email, but I was really scared after hearing back so quickly.
The second reply rolled in shortly afterwards and I didn't even have to open the email to read the first three words: I love it. At that point, I'm fairly certain I stopped breathing. On a complete whim, without allowing my brain to get in the way and just following my heart, I became a soon-to-be-published writer. In October, Vinyl will be published. My very first submission was also my very first "Yes" and if that's not incredible, I don't know what is.
I'm on my way. It's said that the first time you do something is always the hardest, and I think I just cemented that this will not be true in my case. It's never again going to be this easy, but I'm starting the scoreboard off with a point in the "win" column and that is some mighty big inspiration to get my butt in the chair and keep writing.
