Okay, I did it. I submitted a piece of writing for publication. I can't believe I did it, but I did. Now it's gone. It's out of my hands. It's out there, on its own, in somebody elses e-mailbox.

I thought about submitting it this morning after my morning prayers. Least you imagine that my morning prayers are some kind of peaceful, contemplative ritual, let me tell you that I was running late, as usual, fighting traffic on Rt. 140 while trying to remember if I had enough money in my checking account to pay my mortgage. The prayer was a desperate plea to the Almighty to help me think of something to solve my never ending financial crunch...and, while I was on the phone with Him, so to speak, I went on to cover my usual topics like the health of my family, friends, and clients, a request to be forgiven for yesterdays sins, help and guidance in not messing up so much on the moral / spiritual level, thanks for the opportunities that are in front of me and a request to not mess them up too badly, then prayers for people I don't know such as hurricane victems, soldiers at war, people on death row, and the random idiot in front of me who was clearly lost and / or had gotten his drivers licence out of a cracker jack box.

Upon finishing my prayers I got 3 ideas, one of which was to call my client to tell her I was stuck in traffic. She didn't even remember I was coming, let alone that I was late, so I was off the hook there. The other was to transfer funds from my Avon account into my regular account, and the third was: Just TRY to get something published.

I have no idea why everything about the process of trying to publish something is so scary to me. But, seeing as how, near as I could figure, I was down to .35 cents in the checking account, it stuck me that action, not analysis, was what was needed. In order to accomplish this, I thought back to a book I read years ago called Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. The idea of the book, as near as I can remember it was like this: If you have to do something that scares you, you should picture doing it, and picture the worst case scenerio. In my case, I imagined calling the County Times Newspaper, having the receptionist be extremely snotty to me, getting put on hold for 15 minutes while people in the newspaper office sneered and laughed that a person such as myself was inquring about submitting something to the paper, getting a gruff, obnoxious editor who grilled me about what other work I've had published while I heard his staff of college interns cracking up in the background, then finally getting shunted into the voice mail of someone who would never return my call. I sat in the parking lot of Bank of America feeling all the anxiety, embarrassment, and stress. And then I asked myself. "Okay, then what would happen next?"

Well, I would hang up. And I wouldn't call those people again. And I would know, for sure, instead of just imagining that was what happens when you call the County Times and explain that you have submission. So, when I called up and only got a rushed receptionist, then got connected to the newsroom where a perfectly polite person told me that the editor was on vacation but gave me his e-mail address ( 3 times, since I was too nervous to write it down properly) it was not so bad.

Then, all I had to do was clean up the piece, yesterday's "Put a Lid on It", and attach it to an e-mail. The cleaning up was easy, though a little time consuming, since I didn't want to do a half-way job. The e-mail wasn't so hard since it's kind of like a formula: this is who I am, this is what it is, thank you for your time, etc.
The reason I am starting with a local paper, rather than a magazine, is that magazines work 3-6 months in advance of their puplication. It would be really great, right now, if I was inspired for an article about New Years, but I'm not. By the time a magazine I submitted to today was published the election will be over, God Willing, so the piece will not be usable . But to a paper, it might be. And, even as low as my self confidence is, I feel like I'm at least up to the level of writing at the County Times. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, it's a widely read, respected community newspaper. But lets face it - it's not The Washington Post.

So, now it's out there. Now I imagine the editor, getting back from his vacation in a really bad mood because it rained the whole time & his kids spent all his money on video games. I imagine him coming in, grousing, opening his e-mail to find 7,000 pieces of spam and 100 submissions, and, in disgust just deleting mine altogether. Okay. Then what'll happen? Well, if I don't hear from him after a week and a half I'll send him an e-mail and ask if he got it. He'll either send me one back that says "I got it. It sucked. Don't bother me", in which case I won't send him any more. Or he'll send me one that says, " I must have deleted it thinking it was spam", in which case I'll send it to him again...but by then I won't be dying a thousand deaths. I'll only be dying 500 deaths because by then I will be more used to it.

And it's possible, that, no matter what mood he's in, no matter how much spam he's got, he may actually read it and evaluate it on its merrits or lack thereof...in which case we can go on from there. It's possible. Maybe I'll pray about that tomorrow, on my way to Mrs. C.B.'s. She, at least, won't be surprised when I show up.