How To Win By Losing

Image courtesy:Michael

 I couldn't let 2013 slip by without at least one post on this blog. What happened? Where have I been? Well, I decided I had to finish writing my historical novel. Check. It's done (except a few minor edits). Now I just need to go dig up some much needed guts to, gulp, enter the query phase. Shudder. Just typing the word query makes me queasy.

So on to some good news. As mentioned long ago, a writing friend of mine started a website called So Write Us with the goal of hosting monthly writing contests with monetary prizes. I entered, but due to a flagrant disregard of the rules, I didn't win. In fact, my entry was thrown out. Oh, well.

However, one of the judges, an editor for the online magazine Wormhole Electric, liked my writing and extended an invitation to submit a short story. I submitted two.

The first was published in May 2013 and the second in October. If you'd like to read them, go to amazon.com and type Tamara Narayan in the search box. (Note: The same story is published in Transport 21 and the Science Fiction Collection.)

So, I lost the contest, but won the prize anyway. I am published!

Which will come in handy when I write that query letter, because now I have 'previous writing experience'! Booya.