Publicizing Goals

Now Playing: DRACARYS by Ramin Djawadi

Following up on my last post: I managed to submit four stories since bringing an increased number of submissions to the forefront of my writing goals for the near future. In one form or another, they have all been rejected by other magazines, but I've since spent some time working on them, polishing them, prepping them to perform better at their next editor's interview. I enjoy all these stories--I don't enjoy all of mine, and if I'm being honest with myself I can gauge objectively just how good or bad one is--so my hopes are high.

I like publishing my goals on my blog. It gives me a reason to readdress them frequently. I've blogged before about how one of the hardest parts about writing is showing up, because young writers before they have agents or deadlines are only accountable to themselves, so if a writer can't hold himself or herself accountable he or she is doomed to fail.

So knowing that I had already blogged about and made myself aware of how behind I was on my submissions schedule, I felt more compelled to fix the problem. In two weeks I've submitted four stories, and I've been researching the requirements for some other magazines that are newer and might be a good fit for me, so ideally I'll have some new venues to send to. Also, a few of these magazines are themed, which I've always found inspiring because it takes away that "What am I going to write about . . . " question that floats to my frontal lobe when I first sit down.

Since the last goal-posting (sounds like that should mean hitting the pole with a slap shot) worked out well for me, here's my next: my ensuing story will be directed toward one of these new publication finds that have themed issues, so I can submit to them with confidence. They have lengthy breaks between publications, which gives me enough time to write a directed piece, go back to my own random work, and come back to a directed piece without getting annoyed.

These are my goals. I'll report back on my mission progress.

SUBMISSION!

Now Playing: ISENGARD UNLEASHED by Howard Shore
Just Read: 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez--Interesting book. Good writing. I think I enjoyed it. But it wasn't really my kind of book.
Reading Now: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey

What I need to do better is submit.

As part of Write1Sub1 it's my goal to write one story and submit one story per month, every month, month after month, world without end.

The thing is, I've been a part of this online community of writers since 2012, and I've built up a lot of fiction in my "Completed Stories" folder. I manage to submit one story per month to any of a variety of magazines, but I tend to draw the stories for submission from my most recent three or four months' worth of new stories. Older than that I seem to forget about.

That's a lot of neglected fiction that still has a lot of potential.

So what I'm trying to focus on for these next few weeks is sorting through my folder and submitting stories I have essentially forgotten about for a while. The larger pool of fiction I have making the rounds, the better chance I have at getting a story published, and the more editors will start to recognize my name and associate it with a large base of stories.

Thank to Duotrope, the Twitter universe, and the word of so many writers at W1S1, I know of a lot of magazines. I'm setting a goal now to edit and shop out the stories from the past two years to those magazines until, hopefully, they find homes.