Done! I finished it very late on August 31 but slept – finally. The final word count 16469 – yup over. This is not uncommon for me because I refuse to cut short the story at a word count. It means in the editing phase – I’ll be cutting if it’s chosen.
As of 3 am on Sept 1, I hated the ending. I thought it rushed and who knows what else. I kept telling myself to go to bed and tried a couple of times but I couldn’t sleep. So story finished and next, I’m planning to read through it and smooth it out and add in a few things so it’s less abrupt. The reality is if this doesn’t get selected, I’ll make it a bigger story and publish it on my own.
If it does get selected and has to be spot on that 15K mark, then I’ll be cutting and smoothing as I go. Hopefully when I’m done, I will have a reasonable short story.
So waiting to hear whether this is chosen to determine what path this story will take. If it gets selected – well new territory for me with another anthology. If it’s not chosen, ultimately, it won’t be ready for this year so I have about a year to refine it if I’m on my own. That means about eight months to finish the writing (filling it out more) and editing before it would go up for preorder in either late September or October in 2022.