Ever have that panic that there are a million things wrong with your piece after you submit it? And then you have to go check. Shit! Or not. I spent six hours revising a short story yesterday, and today it got sent out in the mail to a bunch of places. Too late to change anything. And it will probably be months before I hear anything back about this story. So, why am I wasting time double checking (actually like a million times checking) my work? If I read this story again I will probably go insane. Do you guys experience something similar when you submit? I felt like this was ready yesterday. Why am I so worried I was wrong today?
My theory is that submitting a manuscript opens up a worm hole which imports typos into said manuscript, because the moment I hit 'send' I can suddenly see glaring errors that I'm sure weren't there before.
Yeah, the other week I followed up and asked if I could substitute the 'second version.' Quite tragic.
Also - pre-submission brings on a snow-madness where you substitute perfectly decent prose with eleven clauses of the same length containing the same verb eight times.
Another writer in RL told me this happens all the time to him and basically every writer. What gives? We edit and polish and think it's ready and then right their we use the wrong there. Is it just the curse of submitting?
I did that once too and was told to withdraw my submission and pay again to upload the same story even though they hadn't even looked at the one I had sent. I guess it could get crazy if every writer was allowed to do this. And I would probably do it way to often. I try my hardest to get my work ready for submission, but it's never perfect. What did they say to you?
It's completely normal. You're just second-guessing yourself. Writers are their own worst critics, so it'll be really difficult to let yourself relax while waiting. If you had some people critique your story, you worked hard on it, then you had it finalized and copyedited and ready, you're all set. Even if you didn't you can be proud of being bold enough to send that story out. That's your talent on paper. And you put it out there. Just walk away a bit, don't read your story again, then if you get rejected, you can go back to it with fresh eyes. Don't read it now and stress over it. It'll tear you up on the inside!
Yep. That's pretty much me times a hundred. I sure do know how to screw up a good story right before I send it anywhere. How are your submissions going? Do you have a lot out right now? And are you the one with the poem at the bus stop? I really want to see it. I've got a few friends in London. If you still haven't found someone to take a picture, give me the details of where it is and I'll reach out to my London peeps. I can't seem to remember where I saw you posting about that, but I think it's really cool.
I had a one day display in Shoreditch [hipster capital] and one day outside the Curzon cinema [hipster middle-earth] on Shaftesbury Avenue. I don't really trust that contest, an on-going situation :/ Maybe 20 out there, of which 15 are genuine. My god, maybe whittle those down to the two big ones, the compilations - so if they squib, I'll be a mess. On a downer now after the writing frenzy. As you might understand, it's the sitting in darkness that pains. A new hobby at the weekend was sending scripts & quips to Newsjack - the template is on their BBC website - and you're allowed two submissions a week, comedy. I sent a considered 'one day write' royalty sketch on Friday, and then an almost drunken 'joke' on Saturday. But that would be nice - £50 if they use my joke, some sun on the cheek. Also developed a new dangerous twitter habit, and began following a famous poet. He tweets four times a minute. I wrote a poem for the old chap, but never put it to him straight, might hurt his feelings: #Celebrity Aged poet on the street And every flicker grabs a tweet @ two more stops I will be home He checks again his telephone All best @Rats, darkness before the dawn ... Oh - it was a competition. Magazines don't mind so much, they sometimes mention substitution in the guidelines. But I don't think it's healthy. In this instance, he thanked me for the entry, no mention of the up-date. I put my shrillness down to experience - it was a grammar error right up top, nnnnnr...
I LOVE hitting "send", because then I don't have to think about the damn thing ever again (unless some selfish bastard wants to PUBLISH the pile of crap and I have to do edits). Maybe you should learn to hate your writing more all through the process, not just after it's been sent? Works for me!
I envy your confidence. I just can't be that cool about things. But I could never send out something I hate. I wouldn't even know how to work on something I hate. I think my favorite part of writing is that I fall in love with every story I write. They're not all great and they won't all be published, but it feels like love. And then that would make all the typos and mistakes betrayals. Why can't my stories just love me back and fix themselves?
Because stories are BASTARDS and don't care about anyone! Do NOT let yourself get too wrapped up in their crazy ways. Write 'em and forget 'em. They're assholes.
"Why yes dear publisher I do write shit. Horseshit, bullshit, dogshit, would you kindly take a good whiff?" Don't envy someone who is already established, that is lunacy. Better to aspire to their level, and have your own confidence. When I submitted initially I did not panic, I expected they would toss it the instant I sent it. It is easier to expect the worst and hope for the best. That is just the logical solution to take when hitting that submit button.
I said I envied @BayView 's confidence -- that kind of one-and-done attitude, send it and forget it. I think it's great if that's how someone can see it, but I will never be there. I (sorry) haven't yet read @Bay's work yet, so I don't know the level she's at, though, I do know she has had success. But I've had some success too and it's not that I have no confidence (though, that tends to come and go). In this thread I was specifically talking about that right-after-you-hit-send panic. I hear you with the whole hope-for-the-best-expect-the-worst thing, but when writing is your livelihood it's a little different. I can't just hope for the best. I have to be the best in the slush pile. It's the only way out. But I can't stop thinking about little tweaks I would do if I hadn't already sent it out. I will hope for the best, but I sure don't want to expect the worst.
I've got one [opener] - rapidly slipping down the pile... 1st draft - he approached the fence dr 84 - boot, snow amassed around aglet, rose and then fell through powders of night-time. dr 85 he approached a fence
I'm the opposite. I love the writing. It's a form of escape for me that I haven't experienced in anything else. When I write, I'm in that world, I am that character and I completely forget that I haven't done laundry in two weeks. Having written, the part you like, scares me. Is it any good? Is it done? Am I done? And after all the editing and polishing, I still question myself. Even after an acceptance from somewhere, I think question if it wasn't a mistake or the editors were all drunk. I think failure and success equally scare me.
There's a stage in every manuscript when I'm so done with writing and just want it to be finished, but that usually comes near the end. I do enjoy editing more than writing, and by editing I mean proofreading. I hate rewriting with my very soul.
I think it takes a while for the vision you had while you were writing the story to be replaced by what actually got written. I think that's why I always say WAIT. Don't submit right away. If you're editing stuff you just wrote, then you're very likely to only see what you want to see or what you think you said. If you write a few other things, THEN go back, I reckon flaws will jump out at you, as well as the great bits you're proud of and want to keep. That's when editing becomes calmer and more accurate. If you submit something, and, immediately afterwards, you discover all sorts of flaws and mistakes, I reckon you're submitting too soon.
I've surely been guilty of sending stuff out too soon, but this panic of sorts comes when even the most polished of my work gets sent out. Even when nothing is wrong per se, I tend to think of things I could have said or done differently. This last one wasn't rushed, but I still feel like I want it back for another day. And if I had it for another day, maybe nothing would change. I guess it's more like a fear of letting go, perhaps. I've had this same feeling when I sent stuff that was accepted as well as rejected.
There are an infinite number of ways to write a story. There are a multitude of GOOD ways to write a story. When we write something, we're making a hell of a lot of choices, and some of them are really close calls. I don't think there's ever a "perfect" story, so I think it's fairly natural to look at a complete story and notice some of the ways it could have been different...
You gotta be allowed to vent neuroses..es. Anyway, the frantic electric prose epilepsy all contributes to vibrant writing scene - if one can say epilepsy.
