Submit Yourself

Submission. What a word. I submit to you. Sounds nasty, yes? And, in the writing world, in many ways, it is because submission so often leads to rejection. In writing, we are all the geeky kid with thick glasses asking the popular kid to the dance. "No," that kid will say about ninety percent of the time in a firm and dismissive tone represented by a rag-tag rejection notice with whatever version of "thanks but no thanks" the editors could cook up.

I'm not bashing literary magazines or small presses. It's not their fault. The sheer number of submissions would overwhelm even the most dedicated literature champion. When I worked as a fiction editor for River Styx magazine, we received anywhere from six hundred to over a thousand submissions per month. That didn't include the poetry contest, which was immensly popular. It is impossible for volunteers and poorly paid editors (in many cases) to go through each submission and respond to it as it deserves. This is simply the world we live in; a world described by a former teacher of mine as a "renaissance" in reference to the number of people writing and submitting their work. I suppose we live with the positives and negatives of any movement, renaissances included.

That being said, writers must prepare themselves for the ineviatable rejection slips that will show up and not take them as a personal affront to their craft. Of course, this is old hat. Many students of the craft and those of us down the craft development road have heard this addage at conferences, in classrooms, and from our peers. Ultimately, however, I want to do something that many of the "experts" argue should not be done. I encourage students to send out what they believe to be their best work. Everyone should continue to adhere to the "don't-send-it-out-until-its-ready" rule, but believing in your work should not be accompanied by a keep-it-under-wraps approach. Send those stories and poems out into the world. Everyone should know where they stand when it comes to publication. That jagged little pill will most likely come back at you, but keep working, keep banging at the door. Sometimes, the porter hears you. Sometimes, the popular kid says yes.

Please share any experiences you've had with submission, rejection, and acceptance. I recently sent out a run of stories to several places and am awaiting word though I've heard the "thanks but no thanks" call from a few places so far.