Last week I started a new job: butler for a bed and breakfast. So far, it's been an interesting job. I'm using a lot of different skills, things I've learned in other occupations and experiences which have proven useful in this new job. I think I like it. Granted, I absolutely despise cleaning work, normally, but I'm finding this kind of cleaning work to be of a different sort entirely and actually quite pleasant. Who knew?
Anyway... last Friday one of our guests was a young woman from Boston, Jennifer, who was in Nashville to better acquaint herself with her own new employer, Terry. Terry is an editor for a major book publishing house- the kind with lots of big-name subsidiaries which nearly everyone in the sci-fi writing genre has heard of at one point or another. My new boss-lady got to talking with Terry for a short time and mentioned that I am a writer with some promising talent. So Terry poked around throughout the house to find me and then chated me up. Pleasant chit-chat. Turns out that he and I went to the same high school and lived in the same area of Dallas. He was a fan of my dad's and uncle's music. Holy shit, he'd even heard my own name through the grapevine somehow- mentioned a story or two I'd submitted to a few magazines, which had come up in conversation with another editor up in New York.
My skin began to crawl and I felt something which Spider-Man would easily identify with- some weird sense tingling at the back and forefront of my lobes.
Terry gave me his card, wrote down his personal email address on the back of it, asked me to send him some stories I'd written. He requested that I send him the best examples of my writing style/voice.
So, for the past week, amidst various life-trials, I have been agonizing over the cache of stories I've written over the past few years. I struggled for days, torn between the desire to send my favorite stories versus the ones which best represent me as a writer. It was probably one of the most painful processes I've ever gone through, as a writer and artist. The Editor in my brain was relentless.
I sent him three documents tonight: two short stories and the first chapter of a book I've been kicking around for close to two and a half years now.
I don't know what to expect now. I don't know if he wants to help me polish my writing or if he's looking for new talent or what.
I'm kinda scared. I'm kinda excited. I'm kinda ambivalent. I'm kinda curious. I'm kinda waiting.
Waiting is.