yes yes YES!

Yesterday I decided to confront some of my procrastination about writing. It's funny because I feel like I have a talent for writing, it's something I enjoy doing, and yet when it comes to actually submitting things for publication, I procrastinate. Maybe it's that I fear rejection, or that it's hard for me to allow others to be that into my mind and thoughts. I don't know.
Regardless, I have been working on a Christmas-themed short story for awhile now. It's based on a Christmas my grandmother had during the depression when her children were little. I did a little research, and I've honed it somewhat into what I felt was good, but not as perfect as I felt I could have made it with more time. Anyway, I realized yesterday that the deadline for that particular submission had passed by a few days, and was almost ready to just file it away, when something in me said, "Hey, give it a chance. What can it hurt?" I sent off a letter to the editor of that anthology and asked if it was too late to submit, and she wrote back and said that although the submission deadline had not been extended, if I could get it to her within the next few hours, with a cover letter, she would consider it. I sent it with a very nice cover letter, if I do say so myself, and in thirty minutes I got an e-mail back. She said it exactly "fit the bill" of what she was looking for, that she had actually cried reading it, and that I could expect editing correspondence and a contract within the next two weeks! So now I'm holding my breath until I actually have another contract in my hand.
If you've been reading my blog, you know that this will make two stories I've published in books similar to the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books. So that makes me feel that maybe the first one wasn't just a fluke, and that I should take this seriously. But it's SCARY! And it's exciting at the same time.
I told my husband last night about the second one. He was very supportive and that surprised me (Why? He's never been NOT supportive of my writing.) but now I'm beginning to think I should clean off the desk, move it by the window, buy some blank CD-R's, set up my reference books, and set aside some time each day to pursue this. I'm so excited!