taking the plunge

Last week Friday I finally took the plunge. I wrote my Very First Query Letter and sent it to a publisher. (Yes, that totally deserved caps.) I was entirely too nervous. I shouldn't be. My story is good. But then I had to be because I can imagine how many queries these people get on a regular basis, all from people who think they can write. I can't expect mine will definitely be the one they choose to read. Or even that they'll buy the story. So for the next week and a half (or whenever they get back to me), my heart is going to skip a beat every time I see that I have a new email.

At least this is (sort of) one of the things from my to-do list. Really, I'm supposed to submit the actual story, but the site I queried prefers letters to direct submissions. My fear is that my description of the story made it sound like anything else out there. I'm not saying it's the modern equivalent of Shakespeare, but I'd like to think the story speaks for itself. I'm reminded of the stories I see on fanfiction sites where the author says something along the lines of "bad at summaries, story is better!!!111!" and then expects people to come running. I don't want to be unrealistic here. This could be my first story published by someone else (I am not counting IBA because I became a part of the staff there). Realistically, they may not publish it. After reading my letter, they may not even ask me to send it to them.

Therein lies the suckage. I'm facing real rejection for my fiction writing for the first time (again, not counting when I submitted stories for review on behalf of IBA). I don't know if, after this, I'll have the patience (and stomach) to submit the story to someone else. But I have to. I should. I can't self-publish forever. Well, I can. I don't want to. Don't get me wrong, I love self-publishing. But it'd be nice to have my writing on someone else's website. And to have someone else design the cover. And have someone else do a bit of the promo. And to be able to submit to review sites that don't review self-published ebooks. And maybe even sell a few more stories!

Hm. Well, I can dream.