Greetings all and first up let me say thank you to Anna, Roni, Helen, Kat and Alison (LinkedIn) for stopping by on my latest posts and liking, loving, sharing and commenting. It's great to see you all pop by and offer support and is much appreciated.
Today I had an old friend of mine tumble into my thoughts. This is not the case of a someone but rather a something which comes in the guise of a program I used to use on the internet. This is known as Duotrope and is a rather splendid tool to help me keep tab of all my submissions, whether they've been accepted as well as also allowing me to seek out new homes for those stories, poems and articles gathering virtual dust on my memory sticks and hard drives.
I thought about it for a few moments and then allowed my capricious side to venture forth and re-enlist with them. This means that I pay for a yearly subscription but for any writer who is serious about getting published not much thought is required. I know in the past I've come across a variety of websites, publishers looking for work and I have had successes. I've also had failures, lots of failures and will do so again. That my dear readers is inevitable.
I can sense some of you thinking, well if it's going to fail then what's the point of that? Or some may be thinking, goodness dear old Raconteur, isn't that a bit of a defeatist attitude to submit thinking you're bound to fail and flies in the face of the law of attraction. It all comes down to your perspective my friends. I see failure as an opportunity to look again at any work that comes back with fresh eyes and then seek to find where I can improve it. As for being defeatist, no, it is a case of being pragmatic.
Imagine for a moment you are the one responsible for the content on whatever publication may come to mind. You open up for submissions and put in a deadline and then the virtual torrent of applications will arrive potentially in their thousands. You gasp in shock to see the galaxy of tales waiting for you to read and you set to this onerous task. Many that you open will instantly fly into the wastepaper basket for they failed to follow the simple guidelines on format. Others will go when you read the first couple of sentences and realise these works are a splendid way of curing insomnia. A few will hold your attention for a bit longer and you may put them aside to read more in depth later.
You continue to whittle away yet you still have a problem. You only have space for two stories for the month in question and are still looking upon over fifty stories. You have a discussion with other members of your team and despite some of those tales being very good they don't quite have the allure you are seeking this month.
As you can see above, getting your work published is a bit of a mission. You could have written a fabulous story but failed to grab the editors attention right from the start. Beginnings are vital if you wish to hold a readers gaze. It may be that you have all the components for a vibrant magical story but alas someone has done it just that little bit better. Conversely, you've written your best piece of fiction you've ever penned and the editors loved it but due to sheer weight of applications it just didn't quite make it.
In short, if you approach the submission process thinking every piece you're submitting is going to hit the bullseye I'm afraid it isn't the case. However, imagine your delight when someone does accept your work. It certainly does give you a fillip and encourages you to put more work out there. Also, subbing your efforts compels you to up your game, to be ultra critical of what you've put out there and polish your tales.
So for me, this time I'm quite happy to allow those stories and poems to rebound to me. I will smile, dust them down, thank and pay heed to any comments that may have come back and get that big red pen out and improve where I can. This my friends, is the real story of submissions.
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