Submission Sunday - March 2024

Putting it out there

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Are you ready to submit? Let’s do this!

Submission update: Still no new pieces to submit, so today I will be submitting 1 older piece (and working to revise 1 older piece). I still have 10 pending responses in my queue and so far in March I’ve received 2 rejections, and 1 ACCEPTANCE (happy dance!)

Today I will submit 1 piece to 5 markets.

So happy to announce that my flash fiction piece titled: “Tortuguero” will be published in the upcoming May issue of Southern Florida Poetry Journal!

How about you? Leave a comment below if you were able to submit your writing today. We will celebrate together!

Surround yourself with people who get it, who understand the struggle, and who lift you up when you're feeling down. I can tell you from personal experience, I’ve had a few emails this month from writer friends just checking in on me and it has really helped to keep me going!

Shout Out to my Warrior Women Writer’s Group and my writing friends over at Centered. Thank you!

Fling it…

We all want to find the perfect home for our writing. But just trying to figure out where to submit to can be daunting. There are lists and lists of literary journals, genre magazines, e-zines, and contests open for submission each month. There is a ton of advice out there on how to find the right place for your work. It can be overwhelming.

And then, how do we know if our piece is ready to submit? Maybe we should revise it one more time? Workshop it one more time? Let it sit in the back of the closet under a heavy blanket and a box of wrapping paper for another six months so it has time to – age, compost, grow, stew (yes, these are actual metaphors used in writing workshops and classes I’ve taken over the years.)

And, of course, there is value in revising and workshopping our writing, and there is even something to be said about letting our piece sit and stew for a while. But, if we ever want to have our pieces published, we must also let them go, launch them softly, or simply close our eyes and fling them out into the world. We must practice folding them up, sliding them into an electronic envelope and clicking that “Submit” button.

We must do this over and over again until the very process is routine.

To be clear: YES, it is important to revise your work and make sure you are submitting pieces you feel are completed and ready. NO, your piece does not need to be perfect and may never be perfect, which is okay. It just has to be ready - like a teenager turned young adult. When it is time, launch those fledglings from the nest.

So, let’s practice. Here is what I want you to do this month:

Step #1: Breathe!

Step #2: Make a list of your dream markets. Those places that you would love to see your work published in. (I have 5: Smokelong Quarterly, Fractured Lit, Swamp Pink, ZYZZYVA Magazine, The Masters Review) 

Step #3: Set aside at least one day a month to practice clicking that “Submit” button. (Hello, Submission Sunday!)

Step #4: Select 1 piece of writing you feel is ready (remember, not necessarily perfect, but rather READY.)

Step #5: Make a list of at least 5 places you could submit to. (not sure where to look for markets? Try Chill Subs.)

Remember, this is just practice. You don’t have to do a lot of research. You don’t have to spend hours and hours pouring over lists of potential markets. We will take the “Fling It” approach to submissions for the first little bit. You don’t have to worry about rejections or acceptances (in fact, let’s just acknowledge the gorilla in the room: 99% of your submissions will result in rejection. Phew. Now we don’t have to think about that anymore.) In this case, the result is not the point. The practice is the point.

Step #6: Breathe (again.)

That’s it. You are ready to submit your work on the date you set aside for submissions. All you have to do now is keep your “Submit My Work” date. Show up. Spend a couple of hours re-reading the submission guidelines for each market you will submit to. Format your work accordingly (please read the guidelines, folks) and click SUBMIT.

That’s it. Those are the first steps. Once you click submit, go back to your art and keep writing. You don’t have to worry about this again until next month when we will rinse and repeat and keep building on our practice. You got this! 🚀✨

Not sure where to submit?

Why not submit something to one of these journals (and, bonus…these Mags don’t charge submission fees - so what have you got to lose?):

• The Adroit Journal

• Prose Poems

• Berkeley Fiction Review

If you didn’t have anything ready to submit today, no worries… we will submit our work again on Sunday, April 21st. If you aren’t quite sure how to get started or are dreading the idea of submitting on your own, join me over at Centered, an incredible community of generous and supportive writers, and we will nurture our writing practice together.

Happy Writing!