May 21, 2013
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Can’t Fail
This morning lurking in my email was a notice from Poetry and Writers Magazine entitled “58 Writing Contest Deadlines”. I have been rummaging among my unpublished works, bringing some of them to my writers group(s) for discussion and response. I should publish some of them.
Yes. Right.
*snaps fingers*
I simultaneously believe two things, both tucked firmly side-by-side in the same mind. They don’t even fight with each other until it comes time to submit something. I believe a.) I am a gifted writer, that writing is the reason I was put on this earth and an integral and significant part of my personal identity and that anything I write has value, purpose and should immediately be published, and b.) I write esoteric, obscure, extremely personal and probably boring stuff no one else on this planet would find even remotely interesting.
And I believe my dogs are more interesting than any other dogs alive today, and I believe I will just magically begin losing weight without effort tomorrow.
So I opened the email and trolled around the writing contest sites. It’s amazing how convinced you can be that you have written something wonderful, meaningful, significant and extremely publishable versus how quickly you can review each contest and say, “Nope…probably not that one…doesn’t fit…wouldn’t get my style…” fifty-eight times.
So how many rejections are pending?
0.
How many submissions have I sent?
0.
You can’t fail if you don’t try.
