Can't Change Just One Thing...

I received a contract from CICADA Magazine last Thursday. I took a weekend to think it over, before I finally signed it and sent it in on Monday. If all things work out as they should, "My Brother's Own Words" will make it into the March/April 2007 issue, and if the planets align, I will receive my six contributor's copies in time for me to shamelessly show them off at my Creative Writing Class. I've already planned (or mostly planned) to whom I plan to give them:

1. One for me.
2. One for my parents.
3. One for Maternal Grandparents
4. One for Paternal Granny.
5, 6: Back-up copies?

I'm very excited - even if the issue doesn't come out in time for bragging rights, I'll still get paid in time for me to make a very substantial dent in next year's tuition, which will leave me time to save up for Film School after I graduate.

It took a great deal of dithering, but I finally got off my ass and started rewriting "Whiff" in order to re-send it back to On Spec. Their rejection letter remarked on some problems with the plot (namely, that there is very little build-up to to Big Reveal of the Baddie, so that by the time Mr. Evil shows up it's a bit like a deus ex machina) .So I've tried to get rid of that, but of course, by doing that I've started changing other parts of the story, too. I can't change just one thing.

So one of my charcters, through the various rewrites, had turned from a flirt into an asshole into a n00b, and I've added a plotline (main character Chelsea does NOT like stinky artificially-scented soaps!), and I've gotten rid of the introductory sequence where the Science Fictional Device is first used in a Harmless Context in order to Explain its Use to the Reader - while this explained the plot nicely to my Non-Sci-Fi-reading Creative Writing classmates, it was too long according to the sci-fi-gourmets over at On Spec. So I cut it.

Hey, at least On Spec offered to accept a rewrite.