So as some of you may or may not know, I've been trying to make my living as a writer for a little more than the past year now. I have three stories that are making the rounds (to various magazines and literary journals) and getting roundly rejected. The first couple of rejections stung. But I kept at it and the rejections kept getting easier to take.

Well, once I got the latest round of rejections, I just didn't have the time or energy to send them all out again, so I procrastinated (an unending problem of mine) and just kept putting it off. But at the back of my mind, I kept thinking that I really needed to start sending these stories off again. After all, I had other pieces I was working on. I didn't want my little file folder to get cluttered with stories I wasn't sending out. So I started to prepare myself mentally for the prospect of sending them out again and getting yet another barrage of form rejection notices.

Well, if I submit my stories through email, I'll use my Gmail account because I know that is the most reliable email account I have. But I never check my Gmail account. It's what I use to store files for printing. I don't normally get correspondance from it. But I decided to check it last night for some reason. And boy am I glad I did.

In January I had sent my short story "Watching the Pot" to a little literary journal in Illinois entitled "Buffalo Carp." It's produced by the Quad City Arts Council and they publish it about once a year. Well, they said they'd get back to me in May of this year. I never heard anything so I just assumed that it was rejected like all of my other pieces. But in checking my Gmail account, I found a message from a few days ago. It came from one of the editors of "Buffalo Carp." They liked "Watching the Pot" and have decided to include it in their next issue, printing this December.

I have to tell you, that was just the boost I needed. This has certainly been an interesting and difficult summer. Work has been scarce and I don't get paid for the two months of summer I'm not officially working for the university. I've had to rely on help from family to make ends meet and I've spent a lot of time writing, especially focuing on my faith-based writings for my personal website (www.joshhornbeck.com). I had hoped that some of my financial support would come through the website and its donations/support page, but all in all it's been a pretty quiet time. It's been a good time, but discouraging nonetheless. Hearing from a publisher that they like your story and want to print it is exciting. It helps reinvigorate and get a little more life into the writing process.

Now it's time to just keep at it. Right?