I'll be in Writer's of the Future Vol. 37!

So, I'd been submitting to L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest for about 17 years. I had a few Honorable Mentions under my belt but no wins or semis. Short stories just weren't my thing; I was a novelist. Or so I thought. However, though I've finished a couple of novels, I've yet to sell one. I had sold a couple stories, though they were rejects or HMs from the WoTF contest. Right before the pandemic, I decided I'd spend my summer break writing as many short stories as I could. I'd been suffering extreme bouts of anxiety the last few years, courtesy of several personal losses that kept me in what felt like a constant state of grieving, and my writing was suffering as a result. Not only in volume, but because I was shutting myself away, and you can't write anything worth anything if you're hiding your emotions from even yourself.

Of the stories I wrote, only one was worth polishing. Only one was truly finished, and I felt like writing it broke me open. I don't know whether it will have the same effect on readers as it did on me. The truth in it isn't anything hidden or particularly profound; it's possibly mundane. But to me, who had been doing my best to not face my pain, to "get on with things" and avoid feeling my sadness for fear I'd just sink down in it and never emerge, it was a big step. It hurt to write this story. But sometimes you have to rip open the wound and drain the infection to heal.

So, the story is "The Argentum" and it won 2nd place in Q2 of the contest, and will be published in Volume 37. I'd sent it off and then forgotten about it. Ironic that this was the time I'd finally won, because when I'd sent off past entries I'd always haunted the WoTF blog to see if I'd made at least a honorable mention, or if I could expect the rejection - because if you win, it's a phone call.

The phone call finally came, and all it took was everything I had. Which is my point. When I was in undergrad, I took a writing course with Ellen Gilchrist, and she told us to write something true, write something real. I've been writing practically my whole life, but at some point in my adulthood I got tangled up in trying to be "good" and edgy and clever and forgot about being true and honest, in both my writing and with myself. If you're a writer, I'll pass on this advice that is so easy to say and so hard to do. Write something true.

Writers of the Future Vol. 37 will be out in November, but is available for preorder on Amazon and B&N.