Let the Editing Begin

Yesterday, I started the editing process.  It is a HUGE step in the right direction.  It's also a HUGE job, and I felt slightly overwhelmed reading through my work and wondering who the heck wrote it.  That's the way I'm supposed to feel so I can make the necessary changes, right?

After this, I need to work on a query letter and let about 400 people read it so I can make sure it looks its best.  Send to agents who are soliciting new authors. Then just wait for the rejection letters to roll in...and if I'm lucky, an acceptance. 

I did a little bit of reading about query letters yesterday and about rejection slips.  I also perused some contests coming up, and I'm debating writing a short story for one or two of them.  Short stories aren't my thing: novels are, but I think short stories are a good way to get recognized and maybe if I submit enough of them I could win a contest or two to add some experience to my query letter.

Speaking of experience: I have none.  I wasn't on the newspaper in high school, not an English major, never really wrote for anyone but myself until this year.  This is all new to me, and it is still slightly overwhelming.  I'm proud of my work though, and I DO want other people to read what I wrote. 

I started the short story yesterday, about a little girl coping with Alopecia Areata for the first time.  This sounds familiar, right?  Writing about this is somewhat cathartic for me, and even though the little girl in the story is not me, I had some of the same fears and thoughts that she did when I first started losing my hair.  I struggled with accepting myself, and honestly some days I still do.  But I think the story will be good because it comes from my heart.  I have the general idea in my head and now it's just a question of how to par it down to 6,000 words.  Six thousand words is awfully small, especially when you're used to writing novels and not short stories.