Crossing My Fingers

I just emailed to ask about the status of one of my short stories that I submitted a few months ago. The market was only looking for one story and was offering pro rates. I got an email back saying I have one of the last four stories in consideration. I kind of feel like I am on a reality show and I made the finale. Crossing my fingers, that this might actually be my first published pro sale.

If I lose I need to remember to be gracious and thank the judges and shake the other contestants hands, after that the host will give me a big hug and tell me how great I am and that I just had an off night and tell me how I’ll get that record deal someday and…or um…guess it isn’t that much like a reality show, but it is still pretty cool.

Side Note: For those of you who remember and are wondering, yes I did have one other pro sale but the publisher went under after paying me but before my story was ever printed, leaving that particular story in a weird limbo.

Not a Pro

Well it has officially been one year since I signed my contract with Faepublishing to have them publish my short story, The Last Dragon. It was my first pro paying sale, but I am assuming the story will never get published now. Their website is gone and has been for months and I have found numerous blogs from authors who were accepted and never published.

Here is the weird part, at least in my opinion, I signed a contract, they did edits and sent me them to look at, and I got paid. I understand running out of money and going under, but they had at least one story paid for and ready to go. Weird.

The contract says that the rights to my story are mine once again, since the story had not been published in the one year since I signed the contract.

Oh, well I guess I have the rights to an unpublished story and $125. I just can't say that I have had a professional sale anymore. It is still the most money I have made off of any one piece of writing, but I really wanted to have a pro sale in my cover letter to other publishers.

As far as writing goes I am playing around with different ways of outlining and starting all kinds of novels just to see if I like them. I am still writing one main novel, which I really need to find a title for. My new years resolution is going well 400 words a day is a lot easier than any other quota I have given myself in the past, I have actually met this one so far and it is almost a month into the new year!