Capt. Kate Short Story Post 10

In honor of having finished the edits on paper at least, I thought it might amuse people to read the conversation I had about a month ago with my inner Fear Monger. The Fear Monger is played by Fluffmodeus, a character created by R.K. Milholland for his webcomic, Something Positive. I invite you to go read the comic, if you don't understand how an inner issue of mine is best represented by a little blue thing that may or may not be real.

October 19th: Staving Off a Submission Fear Attack

Sweet bloody hell, what is wrong with me?

I feel like I'm about to tell King Kong to put down Fay Wray on the way to the Empire State Building. The only possible outcome is becoming street pizza courtesy of a giant gorilla.

That said, it's probably more useful to stop running from the gorilla and do an psych exercise until this visceral gut reaction realizes it's only a movie.

So what exactly is the problem?

I AM GOING TO SCREW THIS UP!



How?

The story is going to be rejected because I fucked up the query or wrote a blah synopsis or didn't get the postage right!



You have a M.A. in English and have lost count of how many papers you had to turn in with different formatting instructions for nearly every professor. You can follow directions.

Forgot about that.



You didn't get this worked up about "the Hitchhiking Highwayman?"

Because I'm expecting the "thanks but not right for us" email on that one any day now. (And that is the response I got a few weeks after this therapy session.)






And that's not the worst that can happen to "Covenant of the Restless?"


No. They can make fun of it, say I wrote it without a clear antagonist, without a clear theme, without proper grammar because the other M.A. students in the creative writing workshop couldn't recognize proper Elizabethan grammar if it wasn't in the Bible or iambic pentameter, and my protagonist's name! They'll make fun of her name!

First, you need to let go of the idiots not knowing "thou" is the informal second-person pronoun. It's been years now.

Second, reading those forums was a bad idea. You can change her name.

But I picked it because of Shakespeare and Catherine of Aragon!



And you've edited so the Elizabethan grammar is now flavor. Now let go of the anger towards those future unemployed Ph.D.s.

The glut in the market shall be my revenge!




Now for the charges of no clear antagonist or theme....

IT'S TRUE!!!!!!!!!




The practical suggestion is to fill out those answers for the query and then decide if it needs beefing up. For example, Kate could meet the dunter earlier when Thompson and Gilbert are killed. or you could add another member to the party who is killed while they're exploring.

But... but I was done.




If you're this worked up about it, it's not done. You have a new month-long deadline and more word count space to fix it as long as you're not a frothing mess about it.

*Sulks off*




And now I have a game plan, rather than flailing about.

November 16: Game plan or not, there was still enough residual flailing to latch onto all distractions between then and now. But it's done now, except for putting the notes into the manuscript. Let me get started on that now.