Independent Verification

I've always felt like I was a talented writer.

Well, you know, except for the times when I felt completely worthless, insipid, and generally unable to follow a complex sentence from one end to the other. Days when I scrap everything I've been working on, throw it in the metaphorical trash and start over. Days when I'm convinced that I will never write as well as I want to.

I think we all have those days.

Taking aside those days, I've believed that writing was the one thing I was good at; I might be ugly (re: fat!), a bad housekeeper, a difficult friend, a needy, self-serving, annoying bitch with delusions of adequacy... but writing! That was my talent.

It's nice, however, to have independent verification.

I love my beta readers, I do; however, they're all my friends. They could be just humoring me.

I love Kristina, who accepted my story "Golden Moments." But again, she's my friend. And while my head believes that she wouldn't risk her reputation as an editor on my bad piece of work just because she's my friend... my doubts and concerns...

Well, yesterday, I got an email:

Dear Lynn,

Thank you for your submission to the Shifting Steam anthology. With just a few tweaks, I’d love to accept your story. Payment is $50.00 plus contributor copies of both print and ebook editions. The rights we’re reserving are first paperback and electronic rights for five years.

I'm very, very excited!

So... now to get to tweaking!