{"id":1149,"date":"2020-12-09T21:46:51","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T02:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2020-12-19T20:17:08","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T01:17:08","slug":"when-you-get-that-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/when-you-get-that-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"When You Get That \u201cYes\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I saw the following Tweet when Gabino Iglesias posted it on November 16, and immediately my mind started spinning.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">So <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CemeteryGatesM?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@CemeteryGatesM<\/a> is going to publish the \u201cHellmark\u201d movie\/monsters ruin the holidays horror anthology. Hah. Don\u2019t tell me you want to write something; write something. Here are your submission guidelines. Tell your friends. Long live horror. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/v7S75al46U\">pic.twitter.com\/v7S75al46U<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Gabino Iglesias (@Gabino_Iglesias) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Gabino_Iglesias\/status\/1328396418101473286?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 16, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve never watched a Hallmark Channel holiday movie (or anything else on the network), but I\u2019ve heard enough about them that I figured I could fake it. Reading through the Twitter thread, I noticed a real emphasis on \u201chorror mixed with humor,\u201d which I think is something I do well.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The only real problem was the November 30 deadline. My focus was shot to hell in November because of pre- and post-election stress. Then again, compared to the deadlines for the Weekly Knob (write a prompt-based story in six days) and the Borderlands Boot Camps (write a prompt-based story in one weekend), thirteen days\u00a0was an\u00a0eternity.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019ve been a fan of Gabino Iglesias as a writer and a person for a while, so getting into an anthology he was editing would be special.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I sat down, cracked my knuckles, and managed to get a story draft down. After Bill beta-ed it and I tweaked it, I sent it to Gabino well before the November 30 deadline. I tried not to obsess after that, but I really, really wanted this one.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Gabino started Tweeting about acceptances this week and my &#8220;helpful&#8221; inner voice that hates me spoke up:\u00a0\u201cAh, you won\u2019t get in; you were a stupid idiot to think you even had a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But I opened my laptop\u00a0on December 8 to see I had two emails, one from Gabino and one from Cemetery Gates Media titled \u201cHALLDARK HOLIDAYS ANTHOLOGY AGREEMENT AND PAYMENT.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>HAHAHAHA screw you, inner voice!\u00a0Happy almost birthday to me. \u201cChristmas Every Day\u201d will be a part of the Halldark Holidays anthology coming from Cemetery Gates media very, very shortly.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Gabino is a terrific writer; if you haven\u2019t read his work, I strongly recommend <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/Coyote-Songs-Gabino-Iglesias\/dp\/1940885493\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PPVBGYMFQX4H&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=coyote+songs+by+gabino+iglesias&amp;qid=1607568320&amp;sprefix=coyote+songs%2Caps%2C147&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i>Coyote Songs<\/i><\/a>. There\u2019s a particular chapter of that book that still haunts me.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And in addition to\u00a0that, he is an amazing advocate for other writers. Here\u2019s an example of his awesomeness: When he was reading submissions for the Halldark anthology, he came across several great stories that didn\u2019t quite fit the \u201cHallmark movie gone wrong\u201d theme. So he put out a call on Twitter and found a publisher willing to put together an anthology of <i>those<\/i> stories and pay the writers.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I aspire to be like Gabino when I\u2019m in more of a position to help other writers.<\/p>\n<p>This is my very first pro-level short fiction sale. On the strength of this, I was able to bump my HWA membership level from Supporting Ally to Affiliate Writer.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Recently I\u2019ve been down on myself and my publication\u00a0dreams. <i>Why do I keep putting myself through this? It just makes me miserable, and it\u2019s not like I need to seek out <strong>more<\/strong> sources of unhappiness right now.<\/i><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But then this happened and I remembered why I do it: Because when an author you admire likes your work enough to want to share it with others, getting that \u201cYes\u201d makes going through all the \u201cNos\u201d worthwhile.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll post ordering info as soon as I get it. Which should be very soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw the following Tweet when Gabino Iglesias posted it on November 16, and immediately my mind started spinning.\u00a0 So&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[38,5,41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}