I submitted an essay to a small journal today. This is the first thing I've submitted in a long, long time, and it scared me silly. I put off proofreading it for 2 days, and when I stopped to wonder why, I realized it was because I was scared about letting the essay go. All of a sudden, it needed weeks and weeks of work. But the deadline is Oct. 1! Best not to submit it then... And then I realized: if I don't submit it, it won't get published. If I do submit it and it gets rejected, it won't get published. Same outcome, so I might as well take a chance.
Crossing the street to the mailbox, I thought it was a good omen that I got a "walk" sign. But then the mailbox didn't open properly because someone had jammed too many letter in it at once. Bad omen? I figured not, since my envelope managed to squeeze past the jam.
Now I'm going to make a list of alternative places to send the essay. So that way if (I first typed when, but I'm trying to be optimistic here) it gets rejected, I'll be all set to send it to another place.
10 comments:
That's great (and I love the mailbox graphic) that you submitted something today. I agree with your reasoning completely. I got a rejection yesterday from Alimentum on that food piece of mine and it didn't even bother me because I had the same "nothing to lose" attitude as you. Onward!
Yeah! I'm doing a little dance for you.
I have a friend I have watched start the steps of writing into publishing novels....he started out by setting a goal to send x # of stories to journals, then x# to get published, then so on and so on. It took a few year, but he got there. I read this and think...she'll get there.:O).
Good luck.
Congrats TI on growing a writer's thick skin!
Gogo--wow! Your confidence in me really means a lot! Thank you!
Excellent, Bug! Great post, great attitude, and if it's the essay that I read, then GREAT ESSAY, too!
When are you supposed to hear by?
Thanks FC! It is the one you read--THANK YOU AGAIN! I'm not sure when I'll hear back. They didn't have specific info on that on their site...
Good for you!
And you make omens good or bad by how you look at them...So, only focus on the first one. :)
You all encourage me with your submissions- I'll get going again someday (I did a bunch of submissions before school apps) I also do the "good sign/bad sign" thinking. So funny.
Hey Bug, good for you! Having a contingency plan for those irritating rejections takes the sting out of it. It's like, "Ha-ha. Reject me all you want, I'm sending it to ANOTHER place."
Good for you!
Thanks all for your encouraging comments! Fingers and toes crossed!
Sending anything off which has a part of you is never easy.
Post a Comment