Submissions: A Cautionary Tale

I’ve managed to overwhelm myself.

Every time I open up email, it seems I have a new message about a publication looking for submissions. And I want to keep them all. I read the theme and think, “That sounds like fun,” or, “I could write something for that.”

Invariably, I never do, but I keep the email to look at later (I never will), and maybe to serve as exercise-prompts when I can’t figure out what I want to be working on.

Right now, sitting down to write more than a few words is a chore all its own. (Only because I am between major projects and life is relatively slow and calm, so self-discipline has taken a vacation.) The idea of going through this backlog of emails just to find a prompt I feel like using? Not going to happen.

These emails, by the way, are primarily from the Coffintree Hill blog. (It’s a fantastic resource; check it out.)

So now my email inbox is overrun because I’ve never gotten around to doing anything with them. I have a bad habit of letting things pile up like that. Now it is time to read through the 20 or 30 I haven’t opened yet, delete the ones I don’t need or want and archive the rest. The hardest part – much like writing – is just sitting down to do it.

When something overwhelms me, I shut down. I bury my head in the metaphorical sand until the stress reaches a breaking point. Then I take care of it.

But weeding through these emails isn’t a huge ordeal for me. I know what I write and I have an idea of where that fits. I know what I’m looking for. A few years ago would have been a far different story.

There are a lot of markets out there. A lot. (A few more good resources: Ralan and The (Submission) Grinder; also Duotrope, though it’s no longer free. I like free. But $5 a month isn’t that bad.)

And it’s easy to get overwhelmed – that still happens to me, and that’s fine! – but learning what’s out there and submitting work is, for most of us, a necessary stop to become the writers we dream of being. So try to have patience with yourself. And be careful of your email subscriptions!

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