101 Submissions in 31 Days

on writing goals, rejections, and taking oneself seriously

Today, I hope you don’t mind me talking a little about the writing life, aka, the creative life.

I’m not going to talk about the creative side, though, but an aspect of the practical side.

Submitting work for publication.

I set a goal for myself at the start of this month: to submit something I’ve written to an online or print journal/magazine every day in July.

To be honest, it’s much easier for me to write a draft of something (or start a draft) and never really finish it. Whether it’s a poem, a short story, or a 75,000-word novel, there’s something safe about having those works as files hidden within folders, hidden from sight.

Never having to face rejection.

From time to time, I’ll have a bit of “free time” when it comes to my writing, so I set aside time to look for journals or magazines where I might submit my work to. I’ll spend a couple of hours researching journals, copying down their submission guidelines and the times of year when they’re open for submissions.

I save it all to an excel file.

And that’s it. I have the information but very rarely do anything with it.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

This month, I decided to get serious about actually submitting work. It’s part of a goal, or maybe a realization, to get more serious about myself as a writer.

I’ve thought of myself as an aspiring writer since 2008, when I rediscovered a passion for writing, started a blog, and began to read more widely. I lived in India at the time, and it took several years before I started college in 2011.

Way back in 2014, between classes at the local city college, I’d sit out on a campus bench with my laptop and write. Over an 18-month period in 2014 and 2015, I made a couple dozen submissions, and half a dozen of them were accepted, most to paying publications, which was pretty cool.

But life got busier as I continued my educational journey—taking full time classes, freelancing as an editor, and working part-time in the school my kids attended. I continued to blog irregularly, but submitting stuff to other places went to the back burner and then kind of just fell off the back of the stove altogether.

Photo by KWON JUNHO on Unsplash

In a weird way, another factor was at play. I kind of educated myself past a confidence in submitting my stuff. In doing so much reading and trying to hone my writing, attending workshops and listening to and giving critiques especially during my MFA in creative writing, I struggled to figure out where I fit in.

I write all genres and sometimes merge them. I know this is generally frowned upon. Stick to your lane and all that. Also, if you want your readers to stick with you, you have to make it easy for them. They might love that book of poetry but if you decide to then write a fantasy novel, it’ll go down sideways.

All these rules.

The year I got my MFA, Covid hit the world. In the few years since then, it feels like the number of people trying to “make it” as writers has quadrupled. And they know what they’re doing.

At least, that’s how it feels a lot of the time.

So, I apologize for the back story, but I guess I wanted to explain why this little goal of submitting something every day this month was a big thing for me.

It’s me saying I’m going to take this writing thing seriously. And even more (even though I feel silly writing it), I’m going to take myself as a writer more seriously.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Here’s how it turned out.

I submitted at least one piece to at least one journal every day in July.

Many of these were poetry submissions, and when sending poems to journals, they often ask for three to five poems. If you count each poem as a separate piece, I submitted 101 pieces this month.

I didn’t even realize it was that many until I counted it today.

To contrast that from what’s normal for me, I made only 14 submissions in the first six months of this year. Throughout the entire year of 2023, it was 23 submissions, all in the first half of the year. I didn’t submit any of my writing—neither poetry nor prose—in the second half of 2023.

As far as acceptances (or rejections), sometimes it takes a while to hear back.

Just today, I got an acceptance note from a journal I submitted to two days ago. I was surprised. They move quickly! I thought to myself. Then I looked at what they’d accepted. It was a piece I’d submitted on June 9, 2023. So, it took nearly 14 months to hear back.

But I’ve gotten some feedback from this month’s submissions: two yeses, one probably, and five nos.

I used to spend too much time worrying about the nos. But the truth is, there are only so many places to submit work; far more writers are hoping to publish their work than there are publications.  

I’m an editor for an online flash fiction magazine, and every month my team can only accept four stories. Some months, we send out several more rejections than acceptance letters. It’s just the way it is.

Of course, submitting work doesn’t mean getting work published. There’s no guarantee of that. But you know what is a guarantee? Work I don’t submit is never going to be published.

I submitted primarily poems, a few nonfiction pieces, and one flash fiction story. Oh, and I submitted my novel to a small publishing house. (Fingers crossed on that one.)

I try to avoid making simultaneous submissions; that means I try to submit something unique to each publication rather than submitting the same set of three-to-five poems to every poetry journal.

Toward the end of the month, I admit, I faced what my mom would call slim pickings. I was having a hard time finding decent poems to submit.

Overall, I think it was a good exercise. I learned a few things while working to reach this goal.

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

I need to not only write more, but polish more.

I used to think it was cheating to edit my poems, that once the muse spoke, that was it: no revisions allowed. But with a poem being so few words—compared to nonfiction prose or most forms of fiction—it actually needs more careful attention, more crafting and paring down, not less.

I need to organize my filing system.

I thought I was well organized; my stuff is all kept in folders and subfolders on my laptop—but when it comes to having a clear way to file what’s been submitted, what’s ready to be submitted, and what still needs work or revision, my works are not as well defined.

So, a couple of goals for August include organizing and doing some revision. I don’t plan on submitting something every day this month, but hope to make one submission a week, just to keep in the swing of it.

Also, speaking of writing goals this month …

You might hear from me less than usual in August. I’ll be traveling during one-third of the month. The time leading up to that trip will be pretty busy getting our older son ready to head off to college. Once we get back to town, it’ll be just a week before the youngest starts back to school.

I’m planning to keep in touch with you all once a week here on Substack. Maybe with a poem, maybe journaling about the journey. We’ll see.

Also, as August is my birthday month, I often try to spend a little time reflecting, evaluating, and just trying to be grateful for the path God has led me and my loved ones on so far.

BTW, this post was far longer than I’d intended. I hope it wasn’t terribly boring reading some background and behind the scenes of this aspiring writer who sometimes takes herself too seriously and sometimes not quite seriously enough.

Hope you had a wonderful July!

I’ll see you in August.