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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Hey Hey it's Saturday...

 So what's the big deal?

Ok, the big deal is this... I started organizing myself so that I do my submissions on Saturday. I just finished this week's. Yeah!

Last week was the start of this new plan/habit. Maybe it's too early to call it a habit yet, but I have accomplished my planned submissions now two Saturdays in a row. In addition, last Saturday I was an over achiever and submitted someplace in addition to my plan.

Now about the plan. I am trying to plan at least three months in advance. That assures a couple of things. Each quarter of a year I now want I need to do for that period of time. Since I check the reading dates I can make sure I'm getting material to the various Journals and venues that I want to be in and not miss their deadlines or like I've often done, realize on Friday night that a deadline is two or three days away and I've given no thought to what I'd be sending so in the pressure of it all I say, "F it" and just let it pass.  "F it" is a well developed form of procrastination for me.

So you see, this not only affords me better control over my calendar of submissions but it also assures that I have time to explore the best fit for my work. Let's face it, if you don't take the time to explore best options and you just slap together three to five poems and send the out, can you really be surprised when they come back in your face rejected?  If you want an editor to truly take time to consider your work, take some time and be thoughtful about what might be a best fit for the Journal you are submitting to. Are you always going to nail it? No, but it's better then throwing the spaghetti noodles on the wall to see if they stick.

I've said it before, I hate submitting work. I'd rather write then submit. But no one has ever come up to me and said "Hey, give me something, anything and I'll publish it." And if they did, I might not want to be in what they just published.

So from now on, if it's Saturday, It's Submission Saturday! I've actually felt good these past two Saturdays after achieving my submission objective. So maybe I'll start to like this thing. Or, at least not hate it so much.

In both instances I've felt so good when I was finished, since I was at my laptop I just kept on working either with rewrites or starting new stuff.

1 comment:

Ivy said...

Hello, Michael -- this sounds like an excellent practice! Oh, and I used to watch 'Hey, Hey, It's Saturday!', back when I was growing up in Australia. It's funny to see the title logo here. Hope you're well!