Submitting My Short Story, Again

I heard someone say once that you can tell a lot about any given line of work by the verbs used to describe how people find it. Actors audition, sales clerks apply, executives are head-hunted, and writers submit.

This weekend, I wrapped up a short story that I plan to submit to journals. It’s a story I wrote in grad school, and as soon as it was done I started sending it out to the best of the best journals (or at least my favorites): AGNI, Glimmer Train, One Story, and more. Sadly, the story wasn’t ready. Back then I had this attitude of “good enough.” I knew there were holes in the narrative, but I figured no one else would notice. Rookie mistake.

After 32 rejections I stopped submitting it and put it aside for a while.

Then, a couple weeks ago, when I decided to take a break from the novel, I went back to it. What I’ve learned, since I last worked on it, is that readers will notice holes that I as the writer will never see. So I reworked it until I honestly thought it was perfect, then I had my writing group review it, patched up the holes they found, then I had my guy take one last pass, and was excited when he only had a couple minor notes.

So tonight I will begin the submission process again. Sadly, I have ruined any shot of acceptance at the fancier journals, as they have already rejected it, but the good news is there are hundreds, if not thousands, of journals out there. By searching online I have found another 30 that seem to be good matches for my particular narrative – lovely journals, with totally respectable distributions. I’m going to follow the same process I did last time. I will submit to the top five on my list, then, as rejections come in, as rejections will, I will just send it out to the next journal on the list.

If I get through another 30 submissions without an acceptance, well, then, I’ll have to do some serious reassessing. And I think that’s why the word submission seems so apt. This process feels like groveling. Like crawling forward on my knees with pages in my out-stretched hands, head lowered.

Well, here goes nothing.