Recently I have been waking up at 5AM to send email job applications, so that the potential employers might take note and perceive me as some kind of early bird.
A friend said this was dishonest of me, but for me (and probably you) applying for jobs is all about dishonesty.
I have answered the question "What is your biggest weakness?" honestly in a job interview. It ended in tears.
So my latest "creative enterprise" has been re-imagining my work experience of three jobs held for less than two months each as desirable and useful. Of course I'm pulling from my academic, professional and volunteer experience and hunger for new experience, so I'm lucky if I can get my cover letter to three sentences.
In a recent job application I claimed to be a freelance writer. When they emailed me back with a questionnaire and asked for two samples, I thought they'd called my bluff. But when I started filling out the questionnaire and looking at all the odd bits of writing paid for (or not) by internet strangers of questionable motivation, I think I found two things that made me seem competent at writing articles, not the weird story-ish things I normally do. The process of creation and revision are great, but I probably couldn't get along without these brief, serene moments where I've convinced myself that I've convinced someone else that I might be able to write.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Conflicting advice and three lessons from Writer's Market
1. You can't make any money off of poetry.
2. Getting a literary agent to represent you is a better goal than getting published.
Recently, I listened to a panel discussion on being published, and they said that their literary agent was indispensable, and that a bad literary agent could really hurt you.
This makes sense to me, because I have a bad literary agent--me. I send work to places that were probably mostly interested in adding me to their mailing list, if that.
Hearing this sage advice, I sought out the Writer's Market handbook to look up literary agents.
There I discovered what I probably should have figured out on my own: first, literary agents only work with things where 10% of the profit is still some amount of money, like screen plays, novels, and just maybe a collection of short stories, and second, I don't have any of those things written.
So, essentially I realized that I am doing a bad job, but I am doing approximately what I should be doing as a writer: writing down stories and showing them to people and publishers, honing my writing skills and creating ideas that could be used in the kinds of work that have the possibility of actually making any money at all.
3. Publishers would prefer that you be somewhat known, for something
That very informative panel on being published mentioned self promotion briefly.
They said it's more or less a waste of time, that you should focus on being a good writer instead.
Then I happened upon a segment in Writer's Market about "your platform."
Publishers looking for your platform are looking for ways that you are already famous or known not including the work that you want published. The book suggested a laundry list of get-famous-quick schemes like making shitty youtube trailers for your book, starting a webcomic or blog or otherwise trying to catch a ship that's already set sail.
Bob Powers got a good following by giving away stories on girlsarepretty.com but to paraphrase something a published writer told a sweaty, desperate crowd, I am not Bob Powers, and you probably aren't either. You're probably not even the why must I cry guy. But more to the point, why would you want to be somebody else?
Don't answer that. Let me just say that you are even more unlikely to be successful if you're trying to be somebody else. Probably the best strategy would be to turn something you need to do or enjoy doing and make that your get-famous-quick scheme.
Okay, that's kind of contradictory.
Let me start over. I think the best any of us can hope for in our endevors is to be an example for others. And if more people know who you are, AND know you for doing something interesting or good, you've got a better chance at being published, I mean, making a difference.
I, for instance, lead art workshops in my community. But I haven't put in anywhere near the amount of work to get my efforts into the newspaper on a slow day, and being in the newspaper on a slow day is a very low bar to set for a non-profit arts program.
Also, freelance article writing is another way to get kinda known, and at the same time do something that might feed yourself sometimes. How to write good articles and get them published, I have no idea. More on this later.
2. Getting a literary agent to represent you is a better goal than getting published.
Recently, I listened to a panel discussion on being published, and they said that their literary agent was indispensable, and that a bad literary agent could really hurt you.
This makes sense to me, because I have a bad literary agent--me. I send work to places that were probably mostly interested in adding me to their mailing list, if that.
Hearing this sage advice, I sought out the Writer's Market handbook to look up literary agents.
There I discovered what I probably should have figured out on my own: first, literary agents only work with things where 10% of the profit is still some amount of money, like screen plays, novels, and just maybe a collection of short stories, and second, I don't have any of those things written.
So, essentially I realized that I am doing a bad job, but I am doing approximately what I should be doing as a writer: writing down stories and showing them to people and publishers, honing my writing skills and creating ideas that could be used in the kinds of work that have the possibility of actually making any money at all.
3. Publishers would prefer that you be somewhat known, for something
That very informative panel on being published mentioned self promotion briefly.
They said it's more or less a waste of time, that you should focus on being a good writer instead.
Then I happened upon a segment in Writer's Market about "your platform."
Publishers looking for your platform are looking for ways that you are already famous or known not including the work that you want published. The book suggested a laundry list of get-famous-quick schemes like making shitty youtube trailers for your book, starting a webcomic or blog or otherwise trying to catch a ship that's already set sail.
Bob Powers got a good following by giving away stories on girlsarepretty.com but to paraphrase something a published writer told a sweaty, desperate crowd, I am not Bob Powers, and you probably aren't either. You're probably not even the why must I cry guy. But more to the point, why would you want to be somebody else?
Don't answer that. Let me just say that you are even more unlikely to be successful if you're trying to be somebody else. Probably the best strategy would be to turn something you need to do or enjoy doing and make that your get-famous-quick scheme.
Okay, that's kind of contradictory.
Let me start over. I think the best any of us can hope for in our endevors is to be an example for others. And if more people know who you are, AND know you for doing something interesting or good, you've got a better chance at being published, I mean, making a difference.
I, for instance, lead art workshops in my community. But I haven't put in anywhere near the amount of work to get my efforts into the newspaper on a slow day, and being in the newspaper on a slow day is a very low bar to set for a non-profit arts program.
Also, freelance article writing is another way to get kinda known, and at the same time do something that might feed yourself sometimes. How to write good articles and get them published, I have no idea. More on this later.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Watch what you say...
I have been running down everything on
much as I had in previous posts, I just haven't been blogging about it, partially because the information is already on placesforwriters, and partially due to the following issues:
Doing this blog immediately and conclusively taught me one thing: Some publishers read nearly everything said about their publication (particularly anything that links to it) so even without a real readership, it's probably wise to watch what I say for this little project, where I am liable to say things like "I have not read any of this magazine, but they pay for submissions, so I chucked some stuff their way." or "I tried reading this magazine, and it made me want to punish them rather than participate, so I sent them an essay I had saved on my computer from a high school writing assignment."
But allow me to reflect upon the morality of that last, very rhetorical statement.
Certainly I should be reading from publications where I submit work, so I have to give the rhetorical second speaker there some points.
Recently Matrix magazine sent me a very kind rejection letter informing me that they enjoyed my work but couldn't fit in in this most recent issue. They encouraged me to submit to their upcoming issue on terror and the terrifying (www.matrixmagazine.org/submissions.html)
which is both encouraging and discouraging. To take them at their word (I believe it isn't a copy pasted message due to the spelling errors, zing Matrix!) I am making good work, (which is encouraging) but I would have needed to be the best around (darn.) Obviously, I can take this on with a dual strategy, aiming for getting better, and getting lucky, but getting back to that other publisher, there is another strategy that comes to mind: submitting somewhere with low standards and high aspirations where I can submit what might be the best they could publish, without actually having to get better. Places that describe themselves as evolved but are composed mostly of generic, semi-literate bile in formats that just don't work, and poetry that appears to have been edited not so much for potency and flow as for spelling errors.
Yes, I was looking for places to send my work and I read such a publication, one that didn't make me hope that they would publish what I would submit, rather the idea that they might made me shudder.
Then I thought of a piece of excessively negative writing that I had never been able (or bothered trying) to write any perspective or hope into. It was something counter-productive and feel-bad, and I submitted, yes I submitted writing just this once not for money or for glory, but for revenge.
Check out the many calls with deadlines this month at places for writers, read their publications (with caution) and write something special, just for them.
Friday, March 28, 2008
$1 Flash Fiction for Every Day Fiction
Every Day Fiction is paying $1 for stories under 1000 words.
http://www.everydayfiction.com/submit-story/
They make you sign up for their forum, which is new and strange but nothing to worry about. I believe the purpose of this is so that it will remember your name, contact info and bio each time you sign in to submit another story. Do not worry about that.
I have been rejected by them a few times, and what stands out for me is that they give a thoughtful inventory of what works for them and doesn't in the submission. These are neither cruel nor kind since I infer that these are actually internal memorandum, one editor writing to another, which makes their curt review of the submission very informational.
I don't submit to them meaning to be rejected so that I can get an editorial insight. Do not do that. I submit stories with a certain commitment that I know I have done good, polished work, and even given that this is all subjective, sometimes I get seriously confused. Sometimes it helps to get some professional insight, and sometimes I need to be told the obvious.
They accept only unpublished work, and since they are an online publisher that includes your story sharing website or blog. There is a lesson here. Throw your work past your friends and acquaintances until something strikes a note, even go ahead and throw shit at publishers until something sticks, but please don't just throw a few chunks online for free expecting fame or even feedback. If you want help you have to give something, even if that something is just trust. If you trust a few people to judge your work they will take it seriously and help you (maybe.) But showing work to just anybody is a lot like showing it to nobody at all. Now, giving stories away is the entire driving force within webcomics, which I love and respect with the occasional strong exception. However, giving it away is something that works when you make it work, not something that runs by itself.
They are a website, but also a mailing list. Sometimes I do like to know what business model the publisher is using even though it doesn't change the color of their money. This may be a part of my web 2.0 "participating in something" delusion. The nature/business model of the publication is this: they email the stories to their list, allowing people to read short fiction without navigating to short fiction websites which are more obviously not work. This is not how Every Day Fiction explains their venture, but it's how I prefer to see it. Maybe the model is just meant to give people small amounts of prose at regular intervals, because only using a website which would archive large amounts might intimidate people who don't feel they have time to be big readers. But it's also true that a downside to a website or an RSS feed is that when you check those at work, it is obvious you are not working, and if you read an email at work, it appears that you are.
So they pay you a dollar for first serial rights. I cannot explain the world of publishing, it is not my expertise. My understanding of it is this: writers give away the first serial rights to their stories for nothing or next to nothing, but later the rights revert back to the author, who can make a book of short stories and sell them, including versions of stories that were rejected from those places. This is what I infer from reading collections of short stories--often every third story has a note saying that this or that journal originally ran that story.
A veteran (by which I mean old person) writer told me that no news is good news, by which he means the longer it takes to hear back from a publisher, the less they hate what you sent them. This has less to do with EDF and more to do with everything else on this blog, but I've had to start a spreadsheet of creative work, how long it is, and what publishers have seen it. This has less to do with how prolific I am and more to do with how forgetful I am. Generally I will hear back from a publisher around the time I completely forget what they publish and what I sent them. If the idea that no news is good news is true, I wonder, are my stories getting that much better or is this blog just getting harder to do?
http://www.everydayfiction.com/submit-story/
They make you sign up for their forum, which is new and strange but nothing to worry about. I believe the purpose of this is so that it will remember your name, contact info and bio each time you sign in to submit another story. Do not worry about that.
I have been rejected by them a few times, and what stands out for me is that they give a thoughtful inventory of what works for them and doesn't in the submission. These are neither cruel nor kind since I infer that these are actually internal memorandum, one editor writing to another, which makes their curt review of the submission very informational.
I don't submit to them meaning to be rejected so that I can get an editorial insight. Do not do that. I submit stories with a certain commitment that I know I have done good, polished work, and even given that this is all subjective, sometimes I get seriously confused. Sometimes it helps to get some professional insight, and sometimes I need to be told the obvious.
They accept only unpublished work, and since they are an online publisher that includes your story sharing website or blog. There is a lesson here. Throw your work past your friends and acquaintances until something strikes a note, even go ahead and throw shit at publishers until something sticks, but please don't just throw a few chunks online for free expecting fame or even feedback. If you want help you have to give something, even if that something is just trust. If you trust a few people to judge your work they will take it seriously and help you (maybe.) But showing work to just anybody is a lot like showing it to nobody at all. Now, giving stories away is the entire driving force within webcomics, which I love and respect with the occasional strong exception. However, giving it away is something that works when you make it work, not something that runs by itself.
They are a website, but also a mailing list. Sometimes I do like to know what business model the publisher is using even though it doesn't change the color of their money. This may be a part of my web 2.0 "participating in something" delusion. The nature/business model of the publication is this: they email the stories to their list, allowing people to read short fiction without navigating to short fiction websites which are more obviously not work. This is not how Every Day Fiction explains their venture, but it's how I prefer to see it. Maybe the model is just meant to give people small amounts of prose at regular intervals, because only using a website which would archive large amounts might intimidate people who don't feel they have time to be big readers. But it's also true that a downside to a website or an RSS feed is that when you check those at work, it is obvious you are not working, and if you read an email at work, it appears that you are.
So they pay you a dollar for first serial rights. I cannot explain the world of publishing, it is not my expertise. My understanding of it is this: writers give away the first serial rights to their stories for nothing or next to nothing, but later the rights revert back to the author, who can make a book of short stories and sell them, including versions of stories that were rejected from those places. This is what I infer from reading collections of short stories--often every third story has a note saying that this or that journal originally ran that story.
A veteran (by which I mean old person) writer told me that no news is good news, by which he means the longer it takes to hear back from a publisher, the less they hate what you sent them. This has less to do with EDF and more to do with everything else on this blog, but I've had to start a spreadsheet of creative work, how long it is, and what publishers have seen it. This has less to do with how prolific I am and more to do with how forgetful I am. Generally I will hear back from a publisher around the time I completely forget what they publish and what I sent them. If the idea that no news is good news is true, I wonder, are my stories getting that much better or is this blog just getting harder to do?
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Write about retaliation in a specific type of setting, and other offers
The exciting part:
I actually found a working listing of opportunities for writers that clears expired deadlines and has rags that are on the up and up--AND it separates contests from calls for submissions for those of us interested in becoming published writers first before becoming award-winning writers and those of us that don't have money to just mail away.
This (like every functional tool for artists I've seen on the internet) was created for Canadians.
Oh, Canada. Here it is.
http://www.placesforwriters.com/calls/
Luckily many of these aren't regionally restrictive.
A paying call for submissions:
http://www.edgeofpropinquity.net/library.asp?id=61
This website wants 2-6000 word short stories (more on what kind, later.)
Submissions are selected monthly and will be accepted on this theme throughout this year.
Payment is $50 per story regardless of length.
There are a few things I'm getting tired of in this aimless search of mine. Why do so many of these rags have no specific guideline for the type of writing they're looking for? Isn't a cohesive issue like a mix tape? Can't there be some connective tissue? Well, this offer has some connective tissue, so much that there actually isn't a single half finished story idea in my warehouse of notebooks that I can jam into their framework, which is fantastic, in a way.
The framework is this: the theme for this year is retaliation, but the stories in this magazine must take place in a modern day setting and also a fantasy setting hidden in the modern day one. What's lovely is that they don't want any specific kind of fantasy, they just want something abnormal and exciting lurking behind an ordinary modern backdrop. In this restriction there is much freedom--as long as you stay in this decade and this planet, you can have mole men Mafiosos or soccer mom international spies or Jesus himself, and some retaliation, of course. None of those are recommended by the website in specific, but they aren't discouraged either.
And of course these guidelines are not so specific that they would have you create something you couldn't use in another publication or your eventual collection of short stories, just in case it takes you over a year to write or your story gets rejected but you remain convinced it's good for something.
The Secret Challenge
In this entry I have made the writing opportunity function of this blog nearly obsolete, so I will step things up a little tiny bit, by having my first Secret Challenge. It's only a secret because it has nothing directly to do with the publisher and they will never know anything about it.
The first secret challenge is simple.
You probably have a few people who will critique your work for you.
Our challenge is, find one more, show someone else your work and expand your pool of volunteer editors, assuming your new volunteer has some constructive comment. For some people this is a pretty tough thing to do, but no less necessary for being difficult.
I used to think that posting on a website was a good way to get critiqued, but showing work to just anybody is a lot like showing it to nobody at all. People give you critiques because you trusted them with your work--besides, creative websites are horribly cliquish, and people are more likely to complain that your work doesn't fit that websites' particular brand of sickness than to critique your work for what it is. Giving your work away online is a strong self promotional tool that many have used to great success, but it's not how you get critiqued
In the future I will try out different methods of getting critiqued, but I like to keep it at no more than one secret challenge per week, perhaps making this the first Weekly Secret Challenge.
I actually found a working listing of opportunities for writers that clears expired deadlines and has rags that are on the up and up--AND it separates contests from calls for submissions for those of us interested in becoming published writers first before becoming award-winning writers and those of us that don't have money to just mail away.
This (like every functional tool for artists I've seen on the internet) was created for Canadians.
Oh, Canada. Here it is.
http://www.placesforwriters.com/calls/
Luckily many of these aren't regionally restrictive.
A paying call for submissions:
http://www.edgeofpropinquity.net/library.asp?id=61
This website wants 2-6000 word short stories (more on what kind, later.)
Submissions are selected monthly and will be accepted on this theme throughout this year.
Payment is $50 per story regardless of length.
There are a few things I'm getting tired of in this aimless search of mine. Why do so many of these rags have no specific guideline for the type of writing they're looking for? Isn't a cohesive issue like a mix tape? Can't there be some connective tissue? Well, this offer has some connective tissue, so much that there actually isn't a single half finished story idea in my warehouse of notebooks that I can jam into their framework, which is fantastic, in a way.
The framework is this: the theme for this year is retaliation, but the stories in this magazine must take place in a modern day setting and also a fantasy setting hidden in the modern day one. What's lovely is that they don't want any specific kind of fantasy, they just want something abnormal and exciting lurking behind an ordinary modern backdrop. In this restriction there is much freedom--as long as you stay in this decade and this planet, you can have mole men Mafiosos or soccer mom international spies or Jesus himself, and some retaliation, of course. None of those are recommended by the website in specific, but they aren't discouraged either.
And of course these guidelines are not so specific that they would have you create something you couldn't use in another publication or your eventual collection of short stories, just in case it takes you over a year to write or your story gets rejected but you remain convinced it's good for something.
The Secret Challenge
In this entry I have made the writing opportunity function of this blog nearly obsolete, so I will step things up a little tiny bit, by having my first Secret Challenge. It's only a secret because it has nothing directly to do with the publisher and they will never know anything about it.
The first secret challenge is simple.
You probably have a few people who will critique your work for you.
Our challenge is, find one more, show someone else your work and expand your pool of volunteer editors, assuming your new volunteer has some constructive comment. For some people this is a pretty tough thing to do, but no less necessary for being difficult.
I used to think that posting on a website was a good way to get critiqued, but showing work to just anybody is a lot like showing it to nobody at all. People give you critiques because you trusted them with your work--besides, creative websites are horribly cliquish, and people are more likely to complain that your work doesn't fit that websites' particular brand of sickness than to critique your work for what it is. Giving your work away online is a strong self promotional tool that many have used to great success, but it's not how you get critiqued
In the future I will try out different methods of getting critiqued, but I like to keep it at no more than one secret challenge per week, perhaps making this the first Weekly Secret Challenge.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Stories That Lift call for submissions, paid
http://www.storiesthatlift.com/STL-routines/submitstories.htm
Stories that lift is paying $5 or more (but less than 20$) for stories between 50 and 7,500 words that are acceptable for adults and children, but more on that later.
Submissions are always being accepted.
Most of the publishers I talk about here are people I think of as kind of cool, and this is no exception. They are accepting stories to post on their website with the intention of making them into audio books, authors are paid an additional $5 when their story is turned into an audio story that can be streamed for free--they appear to pay for the site through their Google text ads.
The audio book thing is very appealing to me, and initially, the idea of a site for family friendly stories put me off--so much that is supposed to be family friendly is really just neutered or neurotic--afraid of saying anything and yet brazen in the disregard for the intelligence of the reader. When I saw the title An Atheist's View I thought I had a chance after all, and I sent in a very short memoir on the irrelevance of identity--perhaps I was thinking of the children's and family entertainment of COSMOS, Carl Sagan frightening children with his elongated consonants and his unrelenting "billions and billions and billions."
Typically I make sure that my work is peer reviewed, and while I certainly read over it a few times, I hadn't shown it to anyone. I had found a paragraph that I had written among a series of rambling, unrelated paragraphs, and I realized that it had an actual setting, beginning, middle and end.
They accepted it and mailed me a check. The story is up there, and I may be getting a check if and when they make an audio story out of it. This sort of blows my mind since this is a family site and my story is essentially about how there's no way of knowing if life has any meaning whatsoever.
It is worth noting the intellectual property agreement is royalty free and non-exclusive. So they can make money off the story forever without giving you any more money, including by selling it in books or CDs for just paying you once--but you can make money off the story too, either through another publisher (although many don't accept previously published work) or in your own self published thing, like a collection of short stories.
Although some might have their hearts set on getting the slow trickle of royalties, this opportunity is still worth while as I see it. They're definitely a small-time startup, so we'll see how they progress from here. In the mean time I'm pretty psyched that I've contributed to some family operation in another state. And if some place insists on my having a publication history, if I really feel like it I can point to this, a story someone bought, small time though it was.
Stories that lift is paying $5 or more (but less than 20$) for stories between 50 and 7,500 words that are acceptable for adults and children, but more on that later.
Submissions are always being accepted.
Most of the publishers I talk about here are people I think of as kind of cool, and this is no exception. They are accepting stories to post on their website with the intention of making them into audio books, authors are paid an additional $5 when their story is turned into an audio story that can be streamed for free--they appear to pay for the site through their Google text ads.
The audio book thing is very appealing to me, and initially, the idea of a site for family friendly stories put me off--so much that is supposed to be family friendly is really just neutered or neurotic--afraid of saying anything and yet brazen in the disregard for the intelligence of the reader. When I saw the title An Atheist's View I thought I had a chance after all, and I sent in a very short memoir on the irrelevance of identity--perhaps I was thinking of the children's and family entertainment of COSMOS, Carl Sagan frightening children with his elongated consonants and his unrelenting "billions and billions and billions."
Typically I make sure that my work is peer reviewed, and while I certainly read over it a few times, I hadn't shown it to anyone. I had found a paragraph that I had written among a series of rambling, unrelated paragraphs, and I realized that it had an actual setting, beginning, middle and end.
They accepted it and mailed me a check. The story is up there, and I may be getting a check if and when they make an audio story out of it. This sort of blows my mind since this is a family site and my story is essentially about how there's no way of knowing if life has any meaning whatsoever.
It is worth noting the intellectual property agreement is royalty free and non-exclusive. So they can make money off the story forever without giving you any more money, including by selling it in books or CDs for just paying you once--but you can make money off the story too, either through another publisher (although many don't accept previously published work) or in your own self published thing, like a collection of short stories.
Although some might have their hearts set on getting the slow trickle of royalties, this opportunity is still worth while as I see it. They're definitely a small-time startup, so we'll see how they progress from here. In the mean time I'm pretty psyched that I've contributed to some family operation in another state. And if some place insists on my having a publication history, if I really feel like it I can point to this, a story someone bought, small time though it was.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Why you shouldn't be using opportunities you got from a random stranger on the internet
I like Craigslist.
I like the connections and the ideas and projects.
There's another place where artists and writers collaborate and gig and get employed, it's called everywhere.
So pick up what's on the news stands and floating around the coffee shops where you live, and see if they'll let you submit to that. Find a local artist/writer to emulate--look at their biography or resume. Where did they send their work?
Sending your work to my motley assemblage of publishers (and ..."publishers") is okay, as a supplement to participating in the creative community where you are.
Your personal experience or identity probably could propel you into a few creative communities, too. I like this blog and the idea behind it, but nobody needs this.
This is my disclaimer. This blog is not how you get published. I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute sound legal advice--I am not an editor and these do not constitute sound opportunities to get published.
Stephen King said that anyone who doesn't have time to read, doesn't have the time or the capacity to write. So be a patron of the arts and submit your stories to the rags that you read and your visual art to the galleries that you visit, put your bucket down where you are* because even if you're dying of thirst there's a good chance you're floating in fresh water.
That said, a lot of the old writer's block for me is the knowledge that I'm trying to make a story for my favorite rag, and I'm 2/3rds sure they should never accept it. I used to draw on used paper just to make sure that I was improving the paper instead of making it worse.
Blogs like this can feed an inferiority complex--I'm encouraging you to send to sketchy small press operations off of Craigslist instead of telling you all to submit to The New York Times.
But sometimes I need to trick my inferiority complex. Making work for small time people who don't pay at all is fine with my inferiority complex, but I can write and edit and do my best, and I can say, inferiority complex, I wrote this for that ad on Craigslist, but it really feels more like the Times to me.
*This references an allegorical story you can easily look up.
I like the connections and the ideas and projects.
There's another place where artists and writers collaborate and gig and get employed, it's called everywhere.
So pick up what's on the news stands and floating around the coffee shops where you live, and see if they'll let you submit to that. Find a local artist/writer to emulate--look at their biography or resume. Where did they send their work?
Sending your work to my motley assemblage of publishers (and ..."publishers") is okay, as a supplement to participating in the creative community where you are.
Your personal experience or identity probably could propel you into a few creative communities, too. I like this blog and the idea behind it, but nobody needs this.
This is my disclaimer. This blog is not how you get published. I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute sound legal advice--I am not an editor and these do not constitute sound opportunities to get published.
Stephen King said that anyone who doesn't have time to read, doesn't have the time or the capacity to write. So be a patron of the arts and submit your stories to the rags that you read and your visual art to the galleries that you visit, put your bucket down where you are* because even if you're dying of thirst there's a good chance you're floating in fresh water.
That said, a lot of the old writer's block for me is the knowledge that I'm trying to make a story for my favorite rag, and I'm 2/3rds sure they should never accept it. I used to draw on used paper just to make sure that I was improving the paper instead of making it worse.
Blogs like this can feed an inferiority complex--I'm encouraging you to send to sketchy small press operations off of Craigslist instead of telling you all to submit to The New York Times.
But sometimes I need to trick my inferiority complex. Making work for small time people who don't pay at all is fine with my inferiority complex, but I can write and edit and do my best, and I can say, inferiority complex, I wrote this for that ad on Craigslist, but it really feels more like the Times to me.
*This references an allegorical story you can easily look up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)