The artistic side
Oct 16th, 2007 by Nut
So what was the last thing I did or have done to further my artistic goal (this is one of the “sides” of the writer’s coin, get it?) of getting published?
Last week I sent out two short stories to a combined 24 different publications. Some were big ones (New Yorker, Paris Review) but most were literary magazines (Alaska Quarterly Review, Land Grant Review).
It’s always a very exciting/nervous time when I finally have stuff that I think is good enough and finished enough to send out. Once I print it all out and label the envelopes, I want to mail it as soon as possible. I can’t stand having all that baggage on me. It’s tough to explain. It’s also difficult to express the magic involved in receiving self addressed stamped envelopes (SASEs). It’s like getting a message sent through a time machine from an earlier version of yourself, in your handwriting, that may contain hope or more despair.
It’s all very exciting.
Anyway, it’s also weird because I won’t hear from these places for a LONG time. Maybe I’ll log it all on here and it’ll force me to keep track of exactly how long it takes them. Then I’ll be able to add to my burgeoning folder of rejection slips. Thanks to Stephen King’s On Writing, one of the best books on writing ever written, I’ve managed to see the accumulation of rejection slips as a romantic/positive thing that shows me that, hey, at least I’m putting work out there.
The secret lies in not letting it all get to you and never stopping.
Ever.
Open an ING account and get a $25 bonus!
After over 20 years of submitting stories to publications, having more than 100 published but also accumulating between 1500-2000 rejections, I have completely scaled back. It’s a lottery and anyone who tells you that publishing is a meritocracy is lying through their teeth. The chances of cold-selling a story to a major market are practically nonexistent. You’re just handing over gobs of money to the mail carrier in your country. Unless you have forged a personal relationship with the editor, met them through a writing workshop or wined and dined them, you’re wasting your money. From now on, I will be publishing almost exclusively through my site and if a publisher/editor likes what they see, they can come to me. I’d like to offer a word of comfort or hope but unless a story of yours happens to be timed perfectly with some hot trend in the marketplace, well…
I know what you mean. Not to sound naive since you obviously have more experience at this than I do, but I’ve seen it done by classmates of mine that I would like to think I compare to, so I’m going to, as I said, never stop.
What you’re saying matches up beautifully with what I’m going for on this blog though, and that’s finding out how to pay for all that postage on a “writer’s” salary.
This is all until I get my foot in the door in advertising, at which point I hope my finances will allow me more liberties like traveling.
One of my old professors is a brilliant (*BRILLIANT!!*) writer with a book I love, love, love. She herself said several times that she’s gotten rejected. And it stinks. But you keep trying. Gradually I think you do get better and get fewer rejections.
Someone else I know keeps a spreadsheet with article/where applied/deadline/response/etc. That’s one idea.
Someone in my workshop knew a spreadsheeter and hated her because she got more work published. It wasn’t that she was a better writer (though this is a biased, secondary source—you know how those go), my fellow workshopper attributed the success to the organized, almost obsessive persistence.
I buy it too.
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[...] written before about the magic of Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes, but has anyone had any luck sending one out [...]