Mustering Courage: From First Draft to Publication
How do you know a story is finished?
Whenever I ask a writer this, I am usually met with the same half smirk and small laugh, because it is a nearly unanswerable question.
If we’re being honest with ourselves, the odds of a writer reading their manuscript and being 100% satisfied with it is very slim. We have been blessed with the ability to be our own worst critics, finding flaws no matter if we’re on draft one or draft twenty-one. In the eyes of a writer, a story is never finished.
We have to at least pretend though, right?
In my experience the three tell-tale signs that my story is “finished” are as follows:
- My manuscript is no longer marked up with questions and new ideas, but rather with grammatical corrections.
- When others read my story, they have a hard time coming up with constructive feedback.
- I am sick of looking at the story and want nothing to do with it anymore.
I found myself experiencing this exhaustion while looking at one of my stories this past spring. At the time, I had worked on the story extensively for months, and it had gone through several revisions. For the first time, I read my work and thought, I don’t think there is anything else I can do with this.
This was a great and simultaneously harrowing feeling. It meant that I had finally “finished” a story, but it also meant I had graduated to the next step of a writers career: trying to get published.
Navigating the publishing sphere as a novice writer is very intimidating. There is a lot of fear that comes with searching through hundreds of calls for submissions and different literary journals. You’ll probably ask yourself things like,
- Am I adequate enough to be included in this journal?
2. Will the editors think my story is good?
And worst of all,
3. What if I get rejected?
Rejection is inevitable. In the course of your writing career, being rejected will happen thousands of times. By no means does it imply you are a bad writer. It just means the editors of that journal weren’t as drawn to your story compared to other submissions received. However, the editors of another journal might think otherwise! You must remember, choosing stories for publication is a very subjective process.
In my search, I came across a list of literary journals open to publishing new writers. I studied the journals and decided which ones were publishing work similar to my own. Then, after mustering enough courage, I wrote a brief cover letter and submitted my story to two of them. I kept my expectations low, focused on writing new stories, and waited.
After a few weeks, the first journal got back to me with a polite, “thanks, but no thanks.” I won’t deny that it stung, but I had prepared myself for this moment and quickly brushed it off my shoulders. With one rejection down, I anticipated the second to appear in my inbox soon after.
Only, when the second one did come, the header of the email said something I hadn’t prepared for. I had to do a double take just to make sure I was reading the word correctly.
“Congratulations!”
“We are thrilled to accept your work, Darling’s Budget Motel, for publication in our e-literary arts journal, Cleaning up Glitter. This will be published in our July 2019 issue.”
At the time of receiving the news, I was accompanied by a friend, and together we jumped up and down as if I had won a sweepstakes. It was an exhilarating moment, and a milestone I will never forget. It was assurance that this passion of mine is not a waste of time. There is room for success, and from here it seems I can only continue forward.
If you’re currently working on a story, play, or poem that you’re tired of looking at, I can not urge you enough to bite the bullet and try submitting it to different publications. The worst thing that can happen is being told no, but then again, rejection is an important lesson in a writers career. Besides, in a sea of no’s there is bound to be at least one yes, and it will be the best yes you ever hear.
Linked below are two sites I frequently use for finding journals and calls for submissions.
Good Luck!
