Thursday, October 7, 2010

The Tension Mounts

Right now, somewhere in the world, my story "Westward Expansion" sits being considered for what will be my biggest publication to date (should it get accepted). It's been out for 98 days now and the editors have gone through two rounds of sending out rejections. As the old saying goes, "No news is good news." I'm excited, nervous, anxious, and scared as hell, because it will be a great step forward for me -- mostly because the story will be in print instead of online. So there's that.

In two weeks, I'll be hosting WriteHouse, which is like the little brother of WriteCamp, and I'm a little nervous about that, too, because I'm essentially doing the entire event by myself, with some help from the editor of UWM's undergrad publication (and she's been a doll about the whole thing with the help she's given). So it's a bit of a nerve-wracking thing to hope that it turns out well. But I'm satisfied that it will at least give more visibility to my little group.

Also, after five years of hemming and hawing about the idea, I've decided to go back to school to get my Master's. In what, I'm not entirely certain; it will most likely be either in Adult Education or Creative Writing, though I'm still not convinced that an MFA will really help me as much as something else would. We'll see. My only gut-twisting issue with this decision is that it will lead me out of state to get said Master's degree, and I haven't moved more than 20 miles from one place to another in nearly 15 years, so starting over -- while I've done it many times in my past -- is a change of monumental proportions, and it scares me.

So that's that. I'm eagerly preparing for NaNo, too, and that's exciting. And enjoying the last of Wisconsin's pleasant afternoon's at the coffee shop.