This post isn’t really about those pesky little rodents, although one did chew through some wires and take out our HVAC today. It’s about how writers at my level (the haven’t been published anywhere worthwhile but are writing every spare minute ) are basically like squirrels.

We’re everywhere.

Some of us are in MFA programs, some of us are in our parent’s basement, some of us are living off trust funds, and some of us finally got the kids off to school and are trying to write before they come back home to be writers.

We’re burying nuts (stories, paragraphs, sentences, words) that may be of some use to us, but mostly we’re trying to get avoid getting hit by cars, or chased by dogs in pursuit of our dreams.

This school year I promised myself I’d send my stories out. Really send them out and I’ve had some itty, bitty success, but mostly I get rejections. Today the rejections for the stories I sent out in December started rolling in.

I’m also fruitlessly pursuing the perfect job and desperately, despeartely putting all my acorns in one basket and hoping to reach the next round with the Amazon contest.

So…. any other squirrels out there?

p.s. Here are the numbers:  35 submissions since September, 20 rejections, one contest win, one contest lose, but offer to publish, one lost submission and waiting to hear on 12 entries.

I’m happy to announce that Sunstone Magazine selected my story, “The Opposite of Sound” for third place in its 2010 Brookie and D.K. Brown Fiction Contest.

My first introduction to Sunstone came when I was a teenager and would read through it on Sundays when we weren’t allowed to watch television. I am thrilled to be part of its continuing tradition of honoring Mormon art and thought in all its wonderful, expressions and forms.

A huge thank you to Lisa for telling me they had a fiction contest and to the editor of Sunstone, Stephen Carter.