Sweet T and Timing

 I had a totally awesome experience last month. I found, by accident, an old Facebook message. Sadly, the enticing offer to do a guest blog post was six weeks old. I began beating myself up for not being on top of the social media game, all the while knowing that it would be futile. I do what I can.

Finding the old message was a verifiable miracle as far as I was concerned. But was it a real offer and not some scam? I’ve been tricked before. I have the infected computer (sitting in the closet) to prove it. I checked out Southern Writers Magazine online. It’s real. I clicked through to Suite T and started reading recent blog posts by William Walsh. I got down to his Jan. 26 post and came upon a familiar quote and a long-forgotten name of a writing instructor. So, two miracles in one morning.

I sat down at my new computer to write out my thoughts—to create one more miracle. I didn’t procrastinate, let those thoughts fade, I got on with some real writing.

I resisted the urge to send it in that first night. Totally GOOD IDEA on my part, because by the next morning’s light I could tell that while the basics were solid enough, I had to do some reorganization for flow and clarity.  

The second draft was better. Then, I took time to read the SUBMISSION GUIDELINES. Bad news. I had to chop out words to get from 640 to under 500.

That took some doing. In fact, I over did it, and got to add words back (saved my ending). Still, it’s good practice to weigh every word and thought.

The title of my blog post is FOX HUNTING, and I will be sure to let everyone know when it will be posted.

THE TRUTH: I’ve finally figured out that if I had found that message in a timelier manner, like, any time sooner than when I did, I would have missed the whole sequence of events that led up to my discovering the teacher’s name. I also would have been hard pressed to have anything relevant to write about. I hate to say this, but procrastination really worked out in my favor this time. Makes me wonder how many other times I benefitted by being lucky instead of being talented.

SPOILER ALERT:

I am going to look for books by William Price Fox.

Find Sweet T at: http://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com

Find FOX HUNTING at: http://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/03/fox-hunting.html