In entrepreneurship, my other profession, business ventures
evolve through iterations. A company tests an idea with customers, then adjusts
it after feedback, and then issues another version for another test. The cycle
is ongoing as the company iterates, builds, and prospers.
I decided this year to treat my writing life like
entrepreneurship. The goals I set for 2018 were about creating iterative habits
that would enable me to build my writing business.
Write every day.
Submit every week.
Revise one work per month.
These goals are about progress in small increments and about
establishing habits. They have taught me things I didn’t know about myself and about
establishing my dedication to this thing we call craft. This blog focuses on
the second goal with a list of things I’ve learned:
Submissions mean
rejections.
Better than writing in a cave, thinking my work is fantastic
and polished and clever is submitting said work and getting the “no thanks”
over and over. Why is that better? Because I know my work is not fantastic, it
needs more polish, and cleverness is for bozos.
“Just tell the stories, Kasie,” these rejections tell me. “Don’t
worry about us.”
Submissions are about
finding the right amplifier.
I can share the story I wrote for my best friend Jessica
with her via email. I have a few I’d like to send directly to the ex-boyfriends
they’re about (but I won’t). I submit to journals and magazines because I want
the stories to be amplified. Finding a place to share them means finding the
right audience for them. So, I submit. And I get rejected. Because as much as I
think by reading three or four pieces the journal has published that my work
would fit there, the editors read everything they publish and they know better.
Rejections are about
the work, not about me.
Editors who say, “No, thanks,” don’t know me. They don’t
want to hurt my feelings, ruin my life, or keep me from writing another story
about another ex-boyfriend. They just want to put together a collection of work
that their readers will read, enjoy, and maybe even pay for. Editors who reject
my work are rejecting the story. Not the storyteller.
Rejections shouldn’t
be purchased.
I don’t pay for submissions anymore. Not even the really
good journals like Missouri Review and Glimmer Train. I know the industry says
getting my work in those journals would say something about how fantastic and
polished and relevant it is. But, the free journals are more competitive. So,
getting published by The Forge or The American Literary Review, or Apeiron Review would be better because
they receive more submissions. Also, submitting every week at $3, $5, or $20 a
week is crazy expensive.
So far, the iterations have taught me a lot about myself and
this business. Learning is what iteration is all about and I’m definitely
learning.
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