Deadline's Coming!!!

One of my stories or poems will be in the mailbox by tomorrow! Boy, oh boy this is harder than I thought it would be! I'm not giving up though! My first submission will be to a magazine. It somehow seems a little less scary, and I read that children's magazine's are a great place to start. There's so much to learn in the process. The lingo is a language of its' own; queries, mss, byline given. Hopefully when I'm ready to submit a manuscript to a book publisher, I'll know what I'm talking about. If I can get a story published before then, I read that it will help illustrate that I'm serious and professional. Hmmmm. "A Professional." I like that. Pretty soon, when someone asks me, "So what do you do?" I'll reply, "I'm a mother and an author." I'm still quite nervous about putting my words on someone's desk. Fear of failure anyone? Fear of imperfection? Oh yes, I suffer from these.