Saturday, September 6, 2008

Writers Write

Most writers have stories of rejection after rejection before their first piece of work is published, so obviously this is what I was expecting when I submitted my first short story to a local magazine, Something Wicked, some time ago. Amazingly, the editor not only accepted my story, but also told me in person. At first I was convinced that he'd confused me with another writer, so I told him the title of my story and said, "That one?" He nodded and smiled at me, but I still wasn't convinced. I think I made a total fool of myself and must have asked for confirmation in one form or another at LEAST six times before finally accepting that yes, he had accepted MY story. Needless to say, he's rejected everything else I've sent in since then :p

Obviously I'm incredibly chuffed by that (the first story, not the rejections), and I still feel the need, a year and a half later, to brag about it.

And yet when I read that story over now, all I can do is cringe and resist the urge to take a red pen to it and edit, edit, edit... Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I've come a long way since then and can write it much better now :-/ Aah well, these things happen... But it's testament to the fact that the more writers write, and the longer writers write for, the better we become...

For anyone interested, the beginning of this story can be read at http://www.somethingwicked.co.za/cms/issue_2_summer_2007/vanessa_finaughty.html

Cape Town Writers' Guild


This blog is dedicated to all things literary, and is run and updated by the members of the Cape Town Writers' Guild. We're a group of enthusiastic writers who love penning short stories and novels. Our main genres are fantasy, science fiction and horror. We are based in Cape Town, and meet once a month to discuss our writing, share critiques and talk about all things literary. We critique each other’s work, thereby improving our writing skills and sharing our knowledge. We’re a fun-loving bunch of people who are passionate about writing in its purest form, and prepared to spend the time and effort to hone our prose.

This blog is for our members to post their comments, hopes, discussions, pet peeves, news, views, dreams, aspirations, successes, failures and possibly short stories and excerpts from novels too. We welcome new members of the like-minded variety, so long as they’re as dedicated as we are, and prepared to abide by our rules, which are somewhat strict, but that’s necessary to produce the best results. We’re serious about our craft, and improving it. Pretenders, weekend scribblers and wanna-bes need not apply.