Success with The "lovely" People's Friend!!!

I didn't want to say anything at first, in case I jinxed it, but I've had an acceptance for a short story!  It’s the first one I've had in a long, long time and only the second one to date, and it's with The "lovely" People's Friend.

In times gone by, whenever I sent a story to The People's Friend, it seemed to bounce back with a standard rejection so fast that I used to check for the elastic attached to the envelope.  I felt that I was so way off the mark in subbing for this magazine that it wasn't worth bothering.  But recently a few writing friends have had such positive feedback asking them to resubmit, following which they made a sale, that I began to wonder if I should try again.

After reading Wendy Clarke's blog, and her glowing reports on the mag, I began to do more than wonder.  As Del Boy used to say, "Who dares wins", so I flicked through some past copies of the magazine, decided on a plot that I thought would suit and wrote it. And then rewrote it.  And rewrote it again.

When I received a response almost by return you could have knocked me over because this time it wasn't heralded by the ominous thud on the mat, but was from a lovely lady called Alison Cook.  She sent me a long email explaining why it wasn't quite right for them, but giving me options to change my plot and characters, and that they would be happy to look at it again.

To be honest, I was just chuffed to receive such detailed feedback from an editor that I thought about what I could do for a few days, and then sat down an rewrote it. 

And then I didn't hear from them for ages.  I tried not to get my hopes up that it was being seriously considered, and kept expecting an email back saying "sorry not this time", so when I did receive the email I hardly dared open it.

But I'm glad I did because it was good news, and Alison seemed thrilled to be telling me that it was going to be published.  I think my family thought I'd finally lost the plot as I danced round the house in joy.    When I signed the contracts and posted them back I felt like a proper writer. 

The good thing is that The People's Friend pay on acceptance not on publication, so the money's in the bank and I can't wait to see my story in print whenever that may be.

So now, its nose to the grindstone to get working on some more.  No point having a success if you don't capitalise on it!

Belly Laughs

I’m trying to catch up on some of my magazine reading and have just read Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special from March – yes, you see how far behind I am!  As ever there were some wonderful stories in amongst the pages – especially from my favourites, Teresa Ashby, Wendy Clarke and Joanna Campbell. I also enjoyed the story by Linda Povey, who is part of an online writer’s group I used to be a member of.

But what really made me laugh out loud was Jane Wenham-Jones’ description of getting stuck in a dress she was trying on and having to call a friend to get her out of it.  What amused me most was not her predicament, but the fact that it took me back to a time when a similar thing happened to me.

Not long after my youngest was born, I was going to a wedding and needed a new dress.  I went into a shop, much posher than I would normally dream of entering, and saw a beautiful dress on a hanger.  Unfortunately for me the dress looked much nicer on the hanger than it did on me so I decided that it was a non-starter.  The only problem was when I tried to take it off, it had cleaved to me like a second skin and was not going anywhere.  My throat went dry, my heart started to beat faster and I could feel the sweat starting to slick as the seams on the dress stretched to the point of bursting.  I had visions of me ending up with a ripped dress and either having to sneak it back in the shop or having to buy it anyway.

Eventually, though, I did manage to get it off, and in one piece, and it was only then that I realised there was a zipper on the side which would have prevented me from doing the changing room work out!

Funnily enough, I haven’t been back to that shop since.

Lightbulb Moments

The other day was I browsing through my favourite blogs when I came across Wendy Clarke's guest post on the wonderful Womag Writer's blog.

In the two years since she was made redundant, Wendy has carved out what appears to be successful career in writing short stories for woman's magazines. You can find her blog here.

When I read her blog, my initial instinct was how lucky she was to have had such success. And then I had a lightbulb moment.........

Luck did have something to do with it. Getting the right manuscript in front of the right editor at the right time does have a certain amount of serendipity, but I suspect that Wendy's success has more to do with hard work, an ability to learn from mistakes and work with editors to give them what they want.

And then of course numbers do come into it. When I read that Wendy had 14 short stories accepted last year, it made me wonder just how many stories she had subbed to get that many yeses.

It made me think about my own submission rate. At the moment I'm only managing to sub about one story a month. Albeit that I am working other projects, but even so, it's pitiful, especially when not all of those submissions are new material, but often re-worked stories. I quickly realised that if I'm ever going to have any success in this field, I need to put an awful lot more effort into it.

Doing some late night reading later that same day I had another lightbulb moment. A. germ of a story idea hit me and instead of shelving it in my mind as I am often tempted to do, I wrote it down. And as I did so a title even came to me - and titles are often the hardest for me.

The next morning I decided to develop the idea. I was just intending to write a plotline but as I did, snippets of text came into my head and I started to write them down.

It's not often that a story writes itself in the first draft, but this one was like a gift. Its just under 1000 words, but there is room for development. I've put it to one side for a few days and then I will type it up, edit it and send it out. Who knows, my own luck might be about to change.

But just to be on the safe side, I've also gone through my back catalogue, identifying which stories can be re-worked for other markets. I have a much clearer idea now of where I'm up to and one thing is for certain - March is going to be a lot more productive than the last few months.

So thank you Wendy for giving me a good kick up the bum and for renewing my enthusiasm.