Getting Published!

One of the things I find so difficult about having a blog is actually trying to keep up with it in the spare 4-5 hours when I'm not comatose. One of the downsides of middle age is that you find whenever you have extra time, all you want to do is sleep.

But....reason to write and cheer. One of my previous posts, "Red Sauce," was selected out of 600 entries in a recent competition by Creative Nonfiction.org which publishes an actual hard copy magazine. This competition is kind of a regular, and it's always themed...this last one happened to be on food. It cost me $20 to submit and I thought this could well be one of the best pieces I've written to date, so what the hell. That was back in November. So when I received the notification that my piece had won yesterday, I screamed. Literally. And I was at work, so of course everyone thought somebody had died. I apologize for that.

So anyway.....for all those bloggers who dream of someday being published for real (and paid!), keep at it. And if you haven't read Red Sauce yet, scroll down a little on the page and you can read it before the rest of the world. I also owe a special debt of thanks to writer Ann Hood who motivated me to really polish this essay during a summer workshop at Chautauqua. Ann--you're the best!