If you have, here's a pretty peony for you. The end, move on, nothing to see here, keep walking.
I am not good at self-promotion. I don't know if it's just my nature or because I'm a Canuck or I'm channeling my inner-British-heritage reserve, but I am just not comfortable tooting my own horn. That being said, I do like to share good news, not so much for the back-patting (which also makes me feel all squidgy inside) but in order to encourage other budding writers, young and old, who may be hesitant to take that leap and send their work out into the world. Also, it lends legitimacy to my days spent on long walks or staring out the window. This is not wool gathering, it's processing information for future material. It qualifies as real work, people.
Just before we left for a trip to Jamaica, oh, a year or so ago (too lazy to look up the date) I learned of a contest for an anthology of travel/camping/cottage stories. When I say "just before" I mean that literally, as in hours before we were leaving.
Luckily the contest rules stated it was acceptable to submit previously published work. Over the past ten years or so, I've had about fifty stories published in various newspapers, magazines and anthologies here in Canada and the U.S. (something else most people don't know about me.) I figured I'd just attach a few of those to an email and carry on packing for the trip. Easy peasy.
However, the attachments didn't attach.
Since my stories almost always come in at 800 words, I thought heck (more like ah, bloody hell and holy Moses on a bagel) I could just type in a few in the body of an email.
I weighed the urgency of packing vs sending in a few stories which may or may not win, but in the end, I sat down, typed like mad, then forgot all about it. (I learned to SCUBA on this trip to Jamaica, the thrill of which pretty much blotted out all and any other experiences before and after the trip.)
(I like talking in brackets. I feel like I'm whispering in your ear. There should be an "aside" font. Also, there is a great need for a sarcasm font. But I digress. Which is another character trait of writers.)
Quite a while later I learned that I won the contest with one of my stories, then yesterday I was asked if they could use a second one as well. So despite the fact that the dog was barfing up thongs and I'd had no sleep for several nights in a row and it was pouring rain, yesterday was a Good Day.
The anthology is tentatively titled "Never Light A Match In The Outhouse: Funny Stories From Cottage Country." Not what I'd use as a title, but they never asked me my opinion.
