Being Creative
Posted by Ink Monkey on Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Under: publishing as a writer
I'm not going to lie. Being creative is oftentimes exhaustive. I mean, take my story "Marmalade" for instance. I once had a guy say "clearly she doesn't plan to ever publish that, she just wrote it for fun." Since then, it's been a personal vendetta to kick butt and get that story published. I've never seen the guy before. I don't remember his name. I'll probably never see him again. But I will get that story into a magazine if it kills me.
And it just might.
Right now, it's January 17th. I do a batch of submissions every few days, and I've been pushing Marmalade. In fact, nine of the 23 pending submissions on my Duotrope tracker (Do you use Duotrope? You really should.) are "Marmalade" and I'll probably do another batch of it in February. No joke. "Reedy River Falls" is second with three. And yeah, I'm not a big fan of the simultaneous submission, but sometimes you just have to do that. It's a lot easier from the writer's standpoint to send out the same story fifty times than it is to send out fifty stories and figure out where you can send something next when it gets rejected somewhere.
But, that's the way this works. And some people might think "why would you keep submitting a story that nobody wants?" It's not that simple. Let's take my most recent acceptance. Today I received word that "Artichokie" will be published front page in February on Daily Love. Aorta, Brittle Star, Concisely, 5x5 and Flash all either rejected it or never responded last year. That's a publishing credit I wouldn't have ever had if it weren't for perseverance. It's just the way it works.
Oh, and there's the not getting paid thing. Out of my last eight acceptances, I've been paid $5 and have received a two volume issue of Pocket Smut and have an issue of Ink Bean pending. That hardly pays the bills, you know? Five bucks won't even get a book of stamps. Never mind everything else.
Yeah. Exhausting, broke, non glamorous. Woot. But that's the life of a writer.
I'll try to update this blog when I have time. It's probably not going to be as often as you want it to be. But that's that time thing again.
Until then, Happy Writing!
~Mandi
And it just might.
Right now, it's January 17th. I do a batch of submissions every few days, and I've been pushing Marmalade. In fact, nine of the 23 pending submissions on my Duotrope tracker (Do you use Duotrope? You really should.) are "Marmalade" and I'll probably do another batch of it in February. No joke. "Reedy River Falls" is second with three. And yeah, I'm not a big fan of the simultaneous submission, but sometimes you just have to do that. It's a lot easier from the writer's standpoint to send out the same story fifty times than it is to send out fifty stories and figure out where you can send something next when it gets rejected somewhere.
But, that's the way this works. And some people might think "why would you keep submitting a story that nobody wants?" It's not that simple. Let's take my most recent acceptance. Today I received word that "Artichokie" will be published front page in February on Daily Love. Aorta, Brittle Star, Concisely, 5x5 and Flash all either rejected it or never responded last year. That's a publishing credit I wouldn't have ever had if it weren't for perseverance. It's just the way it works.
Oh, and there's the not getting paid thing. Out of my last eight acceptances, I've been paid $5 and have received a two volume issue of Pocket Smut and have an issue of Ink Bean pending. That hardly pays the bills, you know? Five bucks won't even get a book of stamps. Never mind everything else.
Yeah. Exhausting, broke, non glamorous. Woot. But that's the life of a writer.
I'll try to update this blog when I have time. It's probably not going to be as often as you want it to be. But that's that time thing again.
Until then, Happy Writing!
~Mandi