A writer’s life is one of introspection and self-doubt. There’s nothing like the ratio of rejection slips to acceptance emails to drive home the message that somehow your words are defective, your thoughts substandard, your ideas puerile. Then a miracles happens. A small miracle. It was a bleary-eyed Monday morning. I hadn’t even bothered checking my email for a few days, sometimes trembling at the very thought. Some days there’s only so much criticism I can take. But this was something good. On a whim I entered a story in Calliope ’s annual writing contest. This story had been rejected a total of seven times, but I believed in it. Calliope is associated with Mensa, and I had an intelligent subtext to the tale—my stories are never about what they seem to be. I sent it in and tried to forget it. The forgetting part worked, for the most part. Daily life attempts to drown my writing hour from time to time. Most...
Blog of a struggling writer.