Saturday, December 20, 2025

Hello, everyone!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! 

Pre-Christmas stress, preparing for John's 60th as well as attempting to e-mail that important article for the new year was pretty daunting for me and here's why:

That "Submit" button can feel like it weighs a thousand pounds. Whether it’s your first pitch or your fiftieth, the moment you send your work off into the void is always a mix of adrenaline and anxiety.

There it is. The cursor is no longer blinking at me. The word count is locked. The "Sent" folder has a new resident.

I just submitted a piece for my freelance gig at Kearny Life magazine.  If you’re a writer, you know that the five minutes following a submission are a strange, caffeinated blur of relief, terror, and sudden "did-I-miss-a-typo" paranoia.

Before I hit send, I did the dance. I read the piece out loud. I ran it through three different spell-checkers. I formatted the headers exactly the way the style guide requested.

In freelancing, your work isn’t just about the prose; it’s about reliability. Sending a clean, well-formatted document is a silent way of saying, "I’m a professional, and I’m going to make your job easy."

Now comes the hardest part: The Wait. In the freelance world, you often send your best ideas into a digital abyss. Sometimes you get a response in ten minutes; sometimes it’s ten days. You start to wonder:

• Did it land in spam?

• Was my hook too aggressive?

• Did I use the word "plethora" too many times? (The answer is usually yes).

Despite the nerves, there is nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a draft. It’s the transition from a messy brainstorm to a polished, tangible product. Whether this editor loves it or asks for a total rewrite, the work is done. I showed up, I did the research, and I put words on the page.

For today, that’s a win.

Bye for now, and see you next year...love ya!