It was cold and clear when I stepped out onto my deck around midnight last night. The stars were out and I could see my breath in the air. Mount Elden rose as a shadow in the distance; the traffic lights at Fourth Street cycled green-yellow-red green-yellow-red for no one. And somewhere, a Word document was rocketing down a fiber optic cable at the speed of light.

My first short story submission of 2013 is out of my hands and off to a slush pile on the East Coast. I won’t hear back from the editors for months. Maybe they’ll love it and publish it. Maybe they’ll hate it. It’s all out of my hands.

However, my peers who have looked the piece over as I’ve crafted it these last nine months seemed to enjoy it. That’s really the point after all — to write something that temporarily takes the reader on a journey. I hope I’ve done that. And in four months, I’ll find out.

For now, there’s work to be done. There’s more to create, edit and submit. I have a burning desire to risk rejection; to risk not being good enough. Call me arrogant, but I suspect that I am good enough for publication. Even if I’m not, perhaps I’ll be lucky enough that no one will notice.

— 30 —

I’m a writer in Flagstaff, AZ looking for his big break. You can follow my adventures with the written word and invasions of the avian variety here and on my Twitter feed: @jonnyeberle. Thanks for reading!

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Waiting for Rejection
The Sinister Specter of Revision
I Think There’s a Bird in My Wall