I have given into the idea that between now and sometime after Christmas, I will probably post only three times here, not the four or five times I had hoped. Not because there’s nothing to say, but because there’s so much going on. The holidays will make it busier, no doubt.

Excited About Widow Woman

When I wrote Widow Woman I liked it. The more I read it over, the more depth of personal meaning it had for me. But the ending wasn’t ‘right’. In the flow of writing it had seemed right and I left it that way. But several times I was asked to submit a short story, and when I submitted Widow Woman with the old ending, it was rejected. I knew it was the ending. Once more time someone asked for a short story. By then I was convinced that I needed to change the ending now, before I submitted it again. I would have to murder my ‘darling child’ of an ending.

I sweated, I wrote, I deleted, revised and rewrote and finally came up with what I thought worked. Then I revised it again. It was even better. And everyone who read both endings agreed heartily that this ending was much better than the old one. I’d love to make a comment here about honesty, but I remember some of the looks on their faces reading that old ending. I posted pieces of Widow Woman on Instagram (@gordondelandauthor) and they get more likes than many of my other posts. Maybe another good sign?  And my sister, an English Major from way back was pleased and surprised by the story.

The final indicator that I maybe did something good in killing off my darling ending comes from the fact that the story with this new ending is going to be published in an anthology! The good folks at Smaeralit are putting out their third book,  “Dreams & Reality: Book 3”. In it will be my Widow Woman story! The book will be available on Amazon some time before Christmas this year, by the way.