The last time I updated you on my writing life, I was working on The Creativity Perspective and my second historical novel, BLIZZARD. That took me through the beginning of August. At that point, I finished the first draft of BLIZZARD and closed down The Creativity Perspective website for awhile. So what have I been doing for the past six weeks?

Submitting Like Crazy

One of my goals for the summer was to submit more of my work to literary magazines. And, thanks to a couple of workshops at Hippocamp by Allison K. Williams, I figured out a plan for doing that. Right after the conference, I spent a couple of weeks editing and polishing two previously finished short stories and two personal essays. During the same time, I made it my mission to find as many places to submit my work as I could. I made a spreadsheet (one of the things I learned in Allison’s workshops) of places to submit with all the pertinent data (word count, method of submission, payment, reading windows, etc.) and every day I’d go on a hunt for three more magazines or online journals to add to the list. I came away with about 40 boxes filled.

I did a lot of work on this spreadsheet and would be happy to share! If anyone would like a copy, just email me at leannesowul(at)gmail(dot)com, and I’d be happy to send it to you. Keep in mind that you’ll still want to do your own additional research on each magazine before you submit. It’s geared toward literary fiction and personal essay/creative nonfiction submissions. 

Once I had four things to submit and 40 places to submit them, I began “submitting like crazy.” I used to hate the whole process and would only submit pieces to a few places at a time. But now I love it! I got a huge rush out of sending my work out to the world. I actually had to hold myself back after a certain point, because I wanted to save some for a second round, and also didn’t want to break the bank (there’s usually a small reading fee). One of Allison’s suggestions was to submit in batches, two or three months out of the year, and I’m definitely going to do that. If  you pick the right months, you can get inside everyone’s reading windows, and submitting in batches means that each individual rejection hurts a lot less. More irons in the fire!

Returning To WAIST

WAIST went on submission to a group of fifteen editors this summer. While all of them had very complimentary things to say, all of them passed on the manuscript. (“It’s just not right for us…”) I obviously would have loved to have a bunch of them jumping up and down to publish my book, but I’ve been working toward publishing long enough to know that it’s a long game and rejection is a vital part of it. In this case, it gave me and my agent the chance to review the manuscript again, and I was surprised and pleased to find that even after so many drafts, I could recognize things to improve. I started working intensely on that re-write two weeks ago (it feels like longer) and I’m already thrilled with the results and thankful that I had the opportunity to make the book even better. I’m hoping to have my work done by the time the baby comes, and then my agent can submit to another group of editors in the later fall. I’m not worried. Many books sell on the second or even third round of submissions.

The title may be changed for this round, too, and though I’m not sharing it here yet, I’m super-excited!

Focusing My Goals

For much of this year, I struggled between the desire to write fiction and nonfiction. Attending Hippocamp ended that struggle for me; my path is now clear, and I know what I want to accomplish. I want to continue focusing on fiction. I love fiction, and even though writing and publishing it is so, so hard, I can’t imagine more rewarding work. But I can still get a taste of working on nonfiction through writing blog posts and personal essays. Those couple of personal essays I wrote for submissions in August really opened my eyes to the potential of memoir. What I love best about nonfiction is the ability to put myself and my experiences on the page, and writing essays is a great way to do that without taking up huge amounts of time that I could be spending on writing novels. So I’m now majoring in fiction, with a minor in creative nonfiction.

Knowing what I want is also helping me say no to opportunities that don’t fit into the picture. I got a couple of leads on magazine articles and even a feature at a local newspaper, and though I felt I could successfully pursue them, I was able to put them aside. Right now, that’s not for me. I need to focus on what I truly want to accomplish, and I’m happy with my chosen path.

So that’s what I’ve been up to for the past six weeks! Next week, for the first time, I’ll share some of the “before and after” WAIST edits.

How’s your writing life?