To Submit or Not to Submit?

Ideas aren't the problem.  They seem to be everywhere.  They're there when you lay down at night and then after coffee, in the morning.  The ever present question is what to do with them?  

When it doubt, write it out!

Lots of these ideas turn into short stories.  Sometimes they go longer and that's fine too.  Full length stories have to start somewhere after all.  My big problem is developing these ideas.  What I've been doing lately is trying to write through it any way I can to see where the story takes me.  Trying to develop the story in an organic manner, you could say.  

I do like this free writing process, even though I realize that it may not be the best long term method for me.  It's fun though, to just sit down with a brand new idea, start writing and see where it goes.  What to do next though?

That's my big issue, or one of them.  A while back, I got a really nice rejection letter from the fine folks over at Pulp Literature Magazine from a short that I sent them.  It was my first submission and rejection, and I was feeling great about it.  Funny how you can feel good about a rejection, but there it is.  I submitted more, all with similar results.  I'm okay with that as I never thought getting anything published would be easy.

Submitting has stopped for me right now.  It's not that I don't want too submit, but I'm not sure if I should.  What if it's not good enough?  Typing that, it seems obvious to me that of course I should be submitting things.  How will I ever know if I'm getting better if I don't ever send stuff in?  Obvious right?  Right.

So now I have a direction to go.  First, I've got to get some stuff ready to go, and then out the door with it.  If no one wants it, well that's fine because I'll still be learning and hopefully getting better.  So I'll get right on that, and I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.