And so it begins...

I sent my first story out to be published today. It's amazing the weight that goes along with something like that. You wouldn't think that hitting print, signing an envelop, slapping a check in it, sealing it, and dropping it in a big blue metal crate would be so hard. But I guess that's why not everyone is a writer. I felt really strong about this story. Of course that didn't stop me from running one final spellcheck and syntax edit on it before I finally hit that print button.

It's for the short story contest at The Writer. The ceiling was 2000 words. I peaked at 835. If nothing else, Columbia has taught me to be concise. Gone are my rambling sentences with many commas and adjectives that run on and on and on and on and....you get the picture.

The one that I sent out is "Interlude" which I've talked about in previous entries as the story that I pitched to Mike Lawrence, my director-friend at Columbia. I showed the story to Mort Castle, my teacher whose opinion I trust implicitly, and he said that it needs to be published. So out it goes. And then my heart climbs into my throat and I nearly choke with nervousness.

That's that.

I've been working on revamping The Center. I hate the title now, as it doesn't feel right, but it's going to stay mostly for the ease of conversation. I've discovered that writing really quality action sequences is hard. Really really hard. So I've decided not to allow myself the luxury of doubling back and editing. Just barreling forward blindly. Get the first draft on the page, and then go at it with a chainsaw. I've been bouncing it off my cohort, Duke. He says it is by far some of the best stuff I have written, which is good, because (like most writers) I feel like everything I do is pretentious crap anyways. More to come..