My short story, "We, Grits" has been published today! It's online in As You Were: The Military Review, Vol. 14, by Military Experience & the Arts. I'm grateful to have worked with David Ervin, the Editor-in-Chief in bringing this short story to publication.
Sometimes, it feels so good to have your work accepted for publication. Sometimes, it's hard to believe I ever wrote anything worthy of publication.
After reading through some of the other works featured in Vol. 14, such as “An American in Nagasaki” by Laura J. Peterson, or “Excluded and Ordered” by Karen Lethlean, and reading how well-written and on-point they can be, I begin to doubt my own worthiness, I guess you could call it.It's a sham feeling, I know.
As this post explains, I've been working on writing stories about veterans-war-military stuff and the floodgates have opened. I'm penning stories as fast as I can think them up.
But I'm just not sure, sometimes.
The questions close in. Doubts nag me. Is it ever good enough?
There's no real answer to that question. This worthiness feeling is a blackhole. It's best to shove it aside, elbow it in the eye, and keep on writing, keep on seeking publication. Because publication isn't as much of a vindication of your work as you'd like to think it is. You, the author, are the only one with the authority to say when a piece is "done" or "good enough."
It's important to remember a lot of things on Memorial Day.
For a peek at who I'm remembering this Memorial Day, at the list of names of the fallen, many of whom I served with, check out this Facebook post that I shared from another user.
Otherwise, Happy Memorial Day.
Out.
(Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lone_olive,_Thuburbo_Majus.JPG)