What Next?

Well, I mailed off my entry packet to the Aardvarks and now I'll just wait. Ron has his sights set on the $600 first prize, but I will be happy receiving two critiques and a "Thanks for Playing" letter.

It's a little sad that I feel such a sense of accomplishment from mailing off a contest entry, but it's been that kind of day/week/year/writing career. Talk about lowering one's standards. But truly, the stars were not aligned (are they ever?) to help me enter this contest. My husband's broken arm, my son's birthday party and an out-of-town guest made the first six weeks of 2010 a little frantic. Then, five hours after my guest departed, I came down with a horrific cold. I managed to crawl to my workplace on Sunday and work on my synopsis and four chapters. On Monday night, Ron played Grumpy Editor and proofed my entry while I chugged NyQuil and passed out. This morning, I spent the first two hours at work putting together the damn picky little packet. So there.

What next? Well, I'm going to put Killer Robots aside for a time and work on some nonfiction. I'd like to develop a short memoir about our move to San Francisco. One of the good things about having a life-changing, mind-scalding experience is getting a good story out of it. It's also supposed to build character, but I have doubts. In my experience, traumatic events don't build people's character -- they just make people twitchy and paranoid and prone to muttering in the subway.