Glad That's Over!

My hissy fit that lasted all day yesterday is officially over. Sorry if I offended or depressed. It was just a really, really crappy day, and I was set off by the frikkin' cold breeze that blew in my eyes all the way to work (you don't understand, it was freezing), the fact that I hadn't heard from Dad before he went into surgery, the other few rejections I had received, the fact that the idiotic landlords decided that air-conditioners were a good idea on a freezing day, idiotic and rude callers on the phone, the computer was running so slowly as to be excruciating, and I lost ten pages of research because Word froze mid-save.

Other than that, it was a lovely day.

Oh, I have been told by my eldest sister that Dad wasn't in getting a pacemaker, but that he was getting an Implantable Cardiovascular Defibrillator. To be honest, I'm not sure what the difference is, and her quoted reference didn't make it any clearer:

"A pacemaker monitors the electrical impulses in the heart. When needed, it delivers electrical pulses to make the heart beat in a more normal rhythm. A pacemaker may be helpful when the heart beats too slowly or has other abnormal rhythms. An ICD is a device that monitors heart rhythms. If it senses dangerous rhythms, it delivers shocks."

In any case, I thought I'd correct that. Not a pacemaker, but an ICD. I haven't heard how his surgery went... and I'm a little tense over it still.

Onwards, then. There was some lovely news that I wanted to share with you all that was completely overlooked by my foul mood yesterday. That is, I'm involved with an online community of writers on Goodreads.com and they recently had a short story competition. There was no prize money at all and the winners of the competition would simply be published in an anthology that would be available as a free eBook. Free is the important concept here. The target audience was young adult and it had to have something to do with a key, be it physical or metaphorical.

Now, I hadn't written any short stories at all since High School (when I had to write one for my QCS exam (Queensland Core Skills, for those not in the know - kinda like a High School exit exam)), and so I was woefully out of practice. Still, I figured, what the heck? Got to be in it to win it, right? So I wrote one.

Maximum word count was 5 000 words. At somewhere past 4 000, I finished my short story. It's called Her Father's Eyes. I rejoiced late Friday afternoon when I learned (thanks Wendy, by the by) that I had made it in! Yay! My short story is going to be in an anthology! I did a happy dance. Perfect Strangers style. Have I dated myself?

Now, there is tonnes of editing that will need to be done, no doubt, and I'm a little anxious about that. However, this will be a good experience for me. It will be my first time working with an editor, which should prove interesting and informative.

I shall let you know when and where the anthology becomes available.

Winning a place in the anthology gave me an idea, and I've set aside writing novels for now to assemble an anthology of short stories and poetry. With luck the writing portion will be done in about a month (I already have three short stories and one poem. I need seven more short stories and nine more poems). It will also be young adult, I think, and completely whimsical, like the books of faerie poems I used to read as a child. I even have a title!

The more difficult part of this anthology will be the illustrations I intend to include. I haven't drawn in a very long time, so we'll see how this turns out. I think I'll need an additional month or two to complete the illustrations. I'm aiming for ten, but might only do five. We'll see.

I intend to have the anthology available for sale as an eBook. If there is enough interest, and if funds allow, I may do a limited edition print version... but we'll just have to see.

So that's my exciting news for the month. I think that about covers everything I wanted to say. Oh, another Ziggs.com search came through... again from 'no frikkin' clue.' I'll spare you the cut and paste.

Right, have a great Tuesday everyone!