Submission
When I was making this task list of what's required to round out production of the On Impulse series, it all seemed hopeful and earnest and exactly what to do~!
Right now? Dragging myself from line item to line item? Yeah. I could really probably quit at any time and be fine.
One of the thirty-nine line items is to submit all the stories to at least three literary journals. That's fine. So, okay. I'm doing it. The work goes out. The rejections come back. The work goes out again.
There's almost no hope in this effort. The competition is ridiculous. Selection is preference, is subjective, is impossible to assure. But there is this sense that--I don't know, that it's at least worth meeting the goal. Just to keep with this curious effort of: does anything ever even happen if you take all these actions you're supposed to take?
I don't know. It doesn't seem like very much is happening. I swear to God if Chase Card Services calls me one more time and asks me whether I have an "alternative revenue stream", I'm going to tell them there will be one if every person on their call bank reviews these collections on Amazon.
Short of orchestrating that, it's this slow process, which, let's face it, is not incremental at all. Yet it's a constant forward motion, fractaling without expectation of arrival. So this morning "How to Cherish the Grief-Stricken" is going to The Georgia Review and Alaska Quarterly Review.
"Harbinger of Spring" is going to the Nimrod theme issue for the spring of 2015, because it's all about the circulatory system.
"That Hollow of a Poppy Stem" is going to Alaska Quarterly Review.
and "The Nightmare State of Leduc" is going to Nimrod.
I've printed all the stories. As soon as I address the envelopes, make some SASEs, and take them to the UPS store, everything for this line item, for this collection will be: Done.
I can't control the outcome. I can't make any journals publish the stories. But. I am grateful that the work is along classic lines. I know I could make a name for myself with work that's basically evidence of a behavioral disorder. I know that. I could already be famous. But. I'd most likely end up dead.
So. No. This is the work: to really tap the emotional life, to really write the kind of literature that is most human, most divine.
And. That's just harder to do well.
If these journals aren't interested in my effort, fine.
But. This is the work I want to do.
This is the work that will keep me alive for another fifty years.
Right now? Dragging myself from line item to line item? Yeah. I could really probably quit at any time and be fine.
One of the thirty-nine line items is to submit all the stories to at least three literary journals. That's fine. So, okay. I'm doing it. The work goes out. The rejections come back. The work goes out again.
There's almost no hope in this effort. The competition is ridiculous. Selection is preference, is subjective, is impossible to assure. But there is this sense that--I don't know, that it's at least worth meeting the goal. Just to keep with this curious effort of: does anything ever even happen if you take all these actions you're supposed to take?
I don't know. It doesn't seem like very much is happening. I swear to God if Chase Card Services calls me one more time and asks me whether I have an "alternative revenue stream", I'm going to tell them there will be one if every person on their call bank reviews these collections on Amazon.
Short of orchestrating that, it's this slow process, which, let's face it, is not incremental at all. Yet it's a constant forward motion, fractaling without expectation of arrival. So this morning "How to Cherish the Grief-Stricken" is going to The Georgia Review and Alaska Quarterly Review.
"Harbinger of Spring" is going to the Nimrod theme issue for the spring of 2015, because it's all about the circulatory system.
"That Hollow of a Poppy Stem" is going to Alaska Quarterly Review.
and "The Nightmare State of Leduc" is going to Nimrod.
I've printed all the stories. As soon as I address the envelopes, make some SASEs, and take them to the UPS store, everything for this line item, for this collection will be: Done.
I can't control the outcome. I can't make any journals publish the stories. But. I am grateful that the work is along classic lines. I know I could make a name for myself with work that's basically evidence of a behavioral disorder. I know that. I could already be famous. But. I'd most likely end up dead.
So. No. This is the work: to really tap the emotional life, to really write the kind of literature that is most human, most divine.
And. That's just harder to do well.
If these journals aren't interested in my effort, fine.
But. This is the work I want to do.
This is the work that will keep me alive for another fifty years.
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