How To Not Be Afraid of Submitting Your Writing

Listen. Submitting is tough. As a writer, there is nothing more frightening than the prospect that someone might actually read that shit that I’ve written. I’m not a parent by a long shot (thank God), but I imagine sending a submission off to be read by a reading board is a lot like sending my spawn off to college. Somehow or another, it’s going to run a gauntlet of ungodly criticism (read: any criticism), and we can only hope it’ll pop out on the other side in one piece. That’s how college works, right? It’s been a hot minute.

My point being, it’s a risk, and as a writer, you have to be ready to take risks. It’s difficult to be rejected. And as someone who has been on the inside of reading boards where my work has been torn to shreds, I worry about the ways in which, in those dark corners of libraries and Excel spreadsheets, my work is being battered around with the vigor of a sophomore English major. But, ultimately, all success is built on heaps of failure. Personally, I was rejected by 30 different lit mags before my first short story was published off-campus. It just happens. In order to learn how to succeed, as with every skill, you first need to learn how to fail.

I have made it my personal challenge to submit to 2,021 literary magazines between December 15, 2020 and December 15, 2021. That is, obviously, an immense volume, and you know that of that volume, the supermajority will be met with, “This piece is not right for us.” The truth of the matter is, you’re no Dickinson or Frost or Emerson or Whitman or Kafka or anyone of objective empirical quality. But quality is not a constructive lens through which to view creative work. You are not aiming for quality. The keyword here is resonance. Resonance turns heads, intrigues reading boards, and makes editors want to put your piece in their publication.

So how do you write work that resonates? I have no idea. Different readers and editors will fixate on different things, and you have zero control over that. I’ve had professors tell me to read the mission statement of the publication before submitting, and maybe that works, but honestly, as someone who has read for themed publications, it’s a slog when everyone submits perfectly to your theme. It all feels like the same story. What you as a writer need to focus on is whether or not the work reflects who you are in the present moment. That’s all that matters. Can you get behind this piece? Have you read through it, tinkered with the language, and engaged with the theme recently? How does this piece reflect the current you? Readers fall behind honest writing. Maybe not every reader, mind you, but the readers who will have the most to gain from your work, in the very least.

I have thirty individual works of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and drama of varying lengths that I am submitting in repertory in the coming year, and I stand behind each one of them. What helps is to stop visualizing your creative work as your child. That’s weird. A poem is not a baby. One shits everywhere. But you can visualize your work as extensions of, even augmentations to, your soul. Your personal library is your toolbag, and each call for submissions is a new situation for which you can choose and utilize the proper tool, a tool which you crafted yourself and have continued to hone up until this moment. If you choose right, you get clout, maybe some money, maybe a couple more readers. And, if you choose wrong, what’s the worst that can happen? Someone tells you, “No.” There are more frightening things in life than that. Throw the freshly-boiled spaghetti that is your writing at the wall. Something is bound to stick.