Now that things are under way at After the MFA, it’s only fair to come clean about something.
Unless you count my high school literary journal — of which I happened to be editor-in-chief — I have never been published in a literary journal or magazine.
Wait. Before you drop your laptop on the ground and storm away in disgust, hear me out.
See, I was about to sit down and write a missive about, yes I haven’t been published but I couldn’t care less because most of what I’ve read in lit journals isn’t that good to tell the truth and I’m busy working on my novel so I can’t be bothered to submit to journals no one reads anyway.
Luckily, before I became publicly obnoxious, I revisited some links to journals online. And I saw again there are some good publications out there, outlets for fiction that are trying to do some things differently, and some trying to hold the ground on delivering good fiction. And there are good stories being published.
I also scanned through my Excel spreadsheet that I use to track my submissions (part of which is in the the pretty graphic above). Looks like I’ve sent stories out over 15 times over the past couple years. That is way more than I thought, given how adverse to the submission process I usually feel. It’s way less than a lot of other people, than succesful and published writers. But that’s okay.
What did I learn today (again)? When I don’t submit or when I get rejections: Well, I don’t want to be published anyway. When I take the time to research, and think about the stories I’ve written and the huge pool of outlets available for them to have a life beyond my hard drive, I guess I get inspired to keep going.
End result, I didn’t erase “get mailing envelopes” from my to-do list. And I thought of a story to submit to Pindeldyboz. Best of all, I’ve come clean to the whole wide world that I am an unpublished fiction writer.* Now is the time to do something about it.
*I have been published, I do admit. But that’s all nonfiction. Not the same.
Comments 7
I’m in the middle of a string of non-fiction rejections myself, and it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. The thing is, this web-work (and finding people like you) makes me feel much less alone…
Posted 02 Aug 2006 at 10:47 am ¶Jason – yep, I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised that in the couple of weeks maintaining this site, I’ve become a little more diligent and persistent in getting done what I need to get done, writing, research, etc… Guess this web thing kind of works after all. Good luck on your submissions.
Posted 04 Aug 2006 at 10:08 am ¶Bukowski submitted nonstop even after he became popular. In fact, I think he submitted over 1,000 times before finally having a poem published. Just keep at it. I think the more rejections you get, the less each rejection will matter. It’s a tough market with many lit journals either tanking or resorting to kitschy McSweeney’s-type stuff. It’s less a matter of what to do than where to go IMHO.
Posted 04 Aug 2006 at 7:34 pm ¶Hey- I found this blog by searching google. As an MFA myself, I’m fascinated. Thanks for sharing your story, and it’s nice to see some kindred spirits out there.
Out of curiosity, do you have some method for submissions? Is there a certain order that you submit your stories?
By the way, I think your selling yourself short by submitting 15 stories over a couple of years. I would recommend sending about 30 per year. 15 in the early fall and 15 around January,
keep blogging-
Armand
Posted 11 Aug 2006 at 10:53 pm ¶Armand — welcome. And thanks for your comments. You and Aaron are right… I need to submit more. But given how much I submitted before getting started in my MFA program (zilch), I’m happy with the progress.
As for method, I try to pick a story to match a publication. But, maybe I should rethink that technique. Especially if I need to ramp up my output…
Posted 12 Aug 2006 at 9:27 am ¶I’d say even 30 is low. If you haven’t published yet, I’d strongly recommend targeting places that take simultaneous submissions. Make certain that each story is under consideration at 5-10 places at any given point in time. Keep good records so you can notify the other journals should your story be picked up.
In many respects, sending work out is the same as sending resumes out. The key to success is good quality and high volume.
Posted 28 Aug 2006 at 1:25 am ¶There are a lot of journals out there with both print and online editions. Most people want to get into the print journal because they can hold it and show it off and so on, but an online publication looks the same on your cover letter. Pindeldyboz, Barrelhouse, Agni, Swink, Missouri Review, etc. – they all have both online and print versions. I’d strongly urge you to get your stuff to these online journals – they usually put new stuff up weekly or bimonthly, so they’re publishing more and (I’d think) rejecting less.
Posted 09 Sep 2006 at 4:23 pm ¶Post a Comment