By Michelle Seaton
If you’re feeling discouraged about your work, I guarantee that your number-one problem is this: You aren’t submitting enough. I might not know you, but I know I’m right about this.
In 12 years of teaching at Grub Street, I’ve learned three truths about students:
- They don’t submit enough, especially the most talented ones. Read that sentence again and then ask yourself how many times you’ve submitted something in the past year. Yeah, I thought so.
- Many of my most talented students never submit anything. This makes me crazy.
- The students who publish most often submit constantly, as though it’s their job, or their final year on Earth. And guess what? It works.
I think I know why you don’t submit: It’s easy to become so comfortable in the womb of the supportive workshop or writers’ group that the thought of having a cold eye cast on your work is paralyzing.
Also, we writers are expert liars. Here are the top three lies we tell ourselves.
- Rejection is all powerful. You think rejection is proof that you have no talent or that the work is no good. Actually, the only thing a rejection proves is that you sent out your work. Good for you. I suggest you collect ten of these and then reward yourself.
- I will submit this story soon, when it feels finished. No you won’t. For most stories and essays there is no moment when it will feel good enough. Submit before you feel ready. Like, today.
- I’m afraid that my work will end up in a journal that’s not good enough. Right. Because keeping the work moldering in your hard drive for a few years is a much better fate for it. No one knows how prestigious a journal is or isn’t—except for those at the very top. So stop obsessing.
In my class on submitting essays, I insist on several things. First, that students submit each work to no fewer than 10 journals at once. Twenty is even better. Yes, journal editors hate this advice, so don’t tell any that I said to do this. But this is what you must do.
Someone in class always asks if they should read the journals before submitting to them. The short answer is no.
Should you be reading journals extensively? Yes. Should you subscribe to several? Yes. In fact, if you are a Boston-area writer and you don’t subscribe to one of the many outstanding local lit journals, well, that’s a crime. But right now we’re performing triage on your submission phobia, and the last thing you need is six months’ worth of homework with which you can procrastinate. Go to each journal’s website and look at the work that’s posted. For now, that’s enough. Want a great shortcut to compiling a list of journals to submit to? Visit www.duotrope.com , which now lists nonfiction markets.
Second, I insist that writers have a boilerplate cover sheet into which they can insert the name of each new story, essay or poem and its length. An ideal cover sheet is short and perfunctory. Why? Because editors don’t read them. Your work speaks for itself.
Finally, I make writers sit down and set a date on the calendar—for this week—when they will submit a particular work.
Are you still reading this blog? Stop now and start submitting.
Indiana Review is always looking for essays!
Good to know! I’ll tell my students…
Thanks for this, Michelle….wise words
this is fantastic advice and a grew post, Michelle. I will browbeat my students to read this and follow your lead. — ethan
ps — I mean, “great post.” !
Terrific points, Michelle. I belong to a “Shipping Group” who’s main focus is on reporting in on what we’ve submitted and what we plan to ship next. It keeps everybody accountable and confirms the idea in all us writers that without submitting, we’re not joining the conversation. In fact, I read your post on the Shipping Group’s FB page.
That’s a great idea. Maybe we should start something like that at Grub.
Thank you, MIchelle. Reading this makes me almost proud to admit that since I took your class, I’ve acquired two rejections…working on two more any time now!
Glad to hear it, Pat. Keep going. It will pay off. I always feel so hopeful when I send out a story, not merely because it might get accepted, but also because submitting a story raises the stakes for me about the whole writing endeavor. I suppose it’s like the difference between jogging every day and training for a race.
Hi Michelle – I saw a link to this article on The Review Review. That’s crazy awesome. I can tell everyone from personal experience that what you’ve said in this piece is so true. Since taking your course, I’ve received 14 rejections and 6 acceptances. I had to withdraw 3 essays and am waiting to hear from 6 more journals. Your “Getting it Out There” course should be retitled as “How To Submit Like A Mo-Fo.”
This post is very timely for me. Increasing the pace at which I submit is something I’ve been working on just the last month or so (as I read this, I have 6 tabs open, trying to decide where I’ll be subbing one of my stories). I particularly love the “counters” you provided for each of the lies we tell ourselves.
But…are you sure that bulk subs to journals or magazines you may not have even read before is a good idea? It goes against both what previous mentors have told me as well as my own personal experience.
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