Seeds of Destiny. Or Density. It's Hard to Tell.

So I may have done a foolish thing.

On a whim, I entered Doleful Creatures in some kind of contest. I don’t know what kind of contest it is. It did involve writing a query letter and submitting the first 250 words or so of the novel.

I saw this thing on Facebook. Time was short. They looked pretty legitimate. So I submitted an entry.

Then I remembered I’d rewritten the first chapter, and had sent them the old version. And the query is one I threw together in about ten minutes. So I submitted and forgot about it.

And forgot.

And forgot.

You can probably see where this is going.

I’ve survived the first round. Voici.

I’m a little fuzzy on what the next step is. Or, I’ve got to figure it out. The email I got was a little hazy on the details.

WHOA HOSS. It says final round. Don’t know what that means. I do see I have to have the revision in tonight. So I did that rather than continue with this post. But now both are done so we’re in some kind of inception world.

Hoping this leads to something. And that this something is more than what I might think it is.

But here’s the rub:

Submitting to this contest is making me see the story in a different light. Specifically, here:

Came too the too-kreee birds, the killdeer, the yoo-hoo birds. Each group sang, and He Who Notes the Sparrow’s Fall closed his eyes to listen, sighing, smiling. He did not sing along, though he knew the tunes by heart. He wanted to hear the others.

Then she came.

She, his sister. Where she walked the marigolds sprouted and when she sang, tulips sprang from the ground, drawn in the same electric frisson that caused feathers and fur to stand on end. And when she sang, the stars drew closer to hear and he sang along, never overshadowing her voice but always in tune, the swaying willow branches matching the cottonwood fluff floating over the water.

At this point, the readers in the contest think the Lady, “she” is a good person. She’s not.

That’s beside the point.

When I read “Then she came,” I wondered – what if this were a different She, not the Lady, but a ghostly presence of Rebekah, Jarrod’s long-lost love, or maybe one of their daughters, returned to help her father reconcile with the wood in which he is a pariah? That would greatly add to the story – bringing in the hope one beta reader wanted so badly for Jarrod, and bringing in a strong, “good” female character; something another beta reader wanted.

The story is still evolving, I guess is what I’m saying. And that after fifteen revisions.

I don’t know where this contest will end – with an agent, an editor, or what. But I know the story is still growing on me. That’s GOT to be a good sign.