First Impressions / Disclosure

Disclosure is the short story I've been using as my "come-look-at-me" piece for social networking sites, and it bothers me slightly that I didn't spend more time on the story.

I was getting ready to start a new job, and I would be leaving my home, my family, and my internet connection.  Three days before I had to leave I stumbled upon a site many of you will already be familiar with, called Smashwords.

I can publish my own stories??

What a great idea!  Then again, you can't trust everything you read on the internet.  Did I want to send this site something special, some valuable (to me, anyway) piece of intellectual property?  I wasn't so sure about that.  What I chose to do was write something completely new, something short and sweet, something that was intended for a quick read during a lunch break... What I came up with was Disclosure, a short story about the Illuminati disclosing their own existence as well as the existence of an extraterrestrial presence.  I wrote the story in two days, and then I had to leave home.  It wasn't until a few weeks later that I learned my story had not only been published, but had been accepted into the site's premium catalog where it would be distributed to multiple platforms... nice.

So what's the problem?  No problem, really, except now I think my entire future as an independent writer rests heavily on the shoulders of one short story that weighs in at less than 5,000 words in length and was written in such a short time frame that I can barely remember writing it.  That thought is ridiculous, of course.  I can always post more stories... But aren't first impressions the most important?  If so, Disclosure is out there shaking hands, sweaty palms and all, trying to get readers to review, recommend, give likes, give tips, give praise, ask for more, and acknowledge that I have a fighting chance at earning a following.  It's a heavy burden for one little story.