Take Me Away

Where has the time gone?  This time last week I was scratching my head getting my first short story ready to post. It's a national competition for a short story titled, 'Take Me Away.' After numerous false starts the keypad and my thoughts connected and the story was formed.  I had hoped to write something amazing.  It was amazing; I changed the names of my daughter, big sister and myself and created a mini masterpiece based on real life.  I embellished the story but most of it was based on fact.  It made me cry when I read it back.  I thought the writing and printing was the hard bit done but I was wrong.  While I was thumping away on my treadmill the following morning while at home I proof read it for the first time.  There right at the end of the very first paragraph was a missing word!  I could hardly believe I had missed it!  I pressed the pen where the omitted word should be. Unknown to me I was pressing the + button on my treadmill.  There I was hanging on with sheer fear while my feet were doing an impression of the road runner.  Finally I managed to get it under control, mental note made not to correct work while on the treadmill!  I read it, I re-read it and did it again.  It didn't matter how many times I read it there was another mistake or grammatical question staring back at me.  After the sixth time I had enough.  I shoved it together awaiting the post office envelope and hoped for the best.  Thinking the postal service was on my side I rushed off to Australia Post only to find they were out of stock of next day postal envelopes!  A trip to another post office ensured my amazing short story was on its way to Melbourne and success. Today I received an email from the magazine to say they had received my submission and they will get back to me in four weeks.  I wonder if it will be published?