Another EC Acceptance

I have seen some truly beautiful prose and wished I could write like that. I have been through the self-doubt mill too many times to count, analyzed my many ‘voices’ and tried to capture that something that makes my work unique. I hope I’ve achieved it, but the beauty of writing is that there’s always room for improvement, always something new to learn. It makes this profession interesting, keeps me on my toes, and makes me strive to do better.

I received another acceptance with Ellora’s Cave and, apart from being stupidly excited to the point I felt sick, I was bowled over that my editor likes my work. I’m not complaining, but because I’m so hard on myself it makes it difficult to believe it when a contract is offered. I actually wanted to run around the house screaming, but my poor husband wouldn't have known what to do so I settled for stamping my feet several times on the spot and letting out a pathetic squeak.

I’ve been writing a loooooong time. I’ve had ups and downs, times when I thought I should give up, but something inside pushed me forward to where I wanted to be—Ellora’s Cave. When your dream comes true it’s hard to take in. Surreal, and the term pinching yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming was in effect the day I walked into the Cave. I still can’t believe it. Still can’t get to grips with the fact my debut book comes out this month. Still can’t get over seeing my name and book cover on the Coming Soon page of the place I used to visit with the words: Oh God, I wish my name was there in the author list.

Recently, I visited the site to look at the author list. My name was there, but it was like I looked at someone else’s name. No, my name can’t possibly be there because things like that don’t happen to me. It has, I know that, but when you’ve dreamed of something for so long and you finally get what you’ve wanted, it takes some getting used to.

I used to be scared of EC. Scared of how huge it is, how many authors are there, of the sheer ‘bigness’ of it all. But it isn’t like that at all. Scary, I mean. I wanted to let people know that EC staff are the most kind, polite, lovely bunch of people and submitting to them shouldn’t fill you with dread. Submit. Go for it. If you get an acceptance you’ll be embraced by a fabulous family.