Following up is always a good thing. I first heard this stressed as I interviewed for engineering positions. It wasn’t just about the interview – a potential employee must also think about sending thank-you notes for the interviews as a follow up. It was something polite to keep your name in front of the people who might be offering you a salary.

It is different with publishers, partly because I’m always thinking they’re busy people and I shouldn’t be bugging them about whether or not I got accepted. There does come a time when it becomes allowable to ask, rather than simply waiting forever.

I submitted another short story to Hadley Rille Books for an anthology called Footprints. The piece is called “Burning Bright” and I am pretty proud of it. It’s longer than most of my short stories; I have not yet learned to vary lengths. I either seem to write short shorts or novels. It’s something to work on.

I contacted the editor – he said it should be about a month, but I hated to ask around the holidays – and I got an update! My story made it through the slush pile and into the final group. He also warned (not sure if that’s the proper term, but I’m going to run with it) that about 1 in 3 pieces in the final group would make the anthology. That’s a lot of submissions! He also said to keep my fingers crossed, but, I tell ya, it makes it really hard to type.

(And, yes, that does mean I’ve tried it once.)