This week has been...strange.
I received the contract (and check!) in the mail for my first short story sale, which is getting published soon in Galaxy's Edge magazine after being accepted last August. That's been an emotional roller-coaster ride all its own, but it's going to work out in the end.
The same day, riding high on waves of optimism, of the proof that I can write something someone will pay for, I received the latest rejections for two of my short stories that are out circulating.
I know I can't take any of it personally, but it truly felt like one step forward, two steps back, that day. Made me wonder if perhaps the one sale is all I've got in me. It's nonsense, of course -- I've got twenty or thirty years of writing left (with luck), and surely can improve a little in all that time -- but it's hard to stare self-doubt in the face and insist you know the future when everything is so uncertain, for everyone.
So, I'm going to do the only thing I can do: Write more, and revise it, and send it out. The only thing I have control over.
How about you? What do you do, when you feel like you're getting conflicting signals from the outside world about your writing?
