This is right. I'm an author!

Last night the most amazing thing happened. I was sweating over a open crock pot while I put the finishing touches on my chili. I took a break and decided to check my email. I was hoping to hear back from some agents...at eight o'clock at night. 

Delusional. I know.

Anyway, I had an email with the header "Congratulations!" I was a little skeptical, thinking it was some junk email so I wasn't going to get my hopes up. There have been too many times when I was excited over a new message only to find out that it was junk. I'm sure my laptop was tired of being yelled at and I wasn't going to be fooled again. So I calmly opened it and had my mind blown to bits. 

It read: "Your submission to our recent short story contest has been selected..." 

Has been selected...

Selected...

I had to re-read that a few times. My mind was malfunctioning. I couldn't understand the human language. When it finally caught up to me, I couldn't believe it. They liked it. My very first paranormal short story. My very first short story in general and they liked it. Well I'm sure you can guess what happened next...

Yup

Sadly yes

Maybe a little too much but I did have trouble focusing on cooking and kept forgetting about the other food I had in the oven so it could've been this.

But I was so happy and super excited (you're probably thinking 'No kidding', right?) It's super awesome and I finally felt like a true author. Not that I wasn't before, don't get me wrong. Anyone who takes the time to create a work of art is an author in my book. But it's one thing to have written something that no one knows about or have your friends and family (who are biased) tell you it's good, compared to being selected from a "wide panel of judges" who don't know you because you're both a stranger to them and the entries were anonymous. To have been chosen based on writing, originality and creativity, making your score one of the ones high enough to be selected, it's amazing. And for the first time since I began writing again, I didn't have to wonder if I have talent or am I wasting my time. I can feel now that this is right. I'm supposed to be an author and now I've just gotten started.

So for anyone interested, keep your eyes and ears open for more updates about "Losers Weepers", a paranormal anthology, by Xchyler Publishing that will be releasing in September/October this year. :)