by Désirée Zamorano
First off, you can’t get into a top-tier magazine unless you submit. You can’t submit unless you’ve got work, and you won’t have the work unless you sit down to write. Let’s talk about this.
My bookshelves are filled with texts, some popular, some academic, on how to be a better person, partner, parent, educator, writer. To help you close the gap, I’m not going to talk about all those writerly texts, as marvelous as they all can be. (Personal favorites: Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See, and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass). I’m going to go old school here, and talk about The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Yes, I realize Stephen Covey turned into an industry himself. But I’m going to talk about the two habits that I have carried forward once I read this classic. The first habit involves a Venn diagram with one circle labeled “Area of concern” and the other circle labeled “Area of influence.”
Concerned about your writing? (You should be)
Do you have influence over your writing? (You are the only one).
Where those two circles overlap is where you have your most powerful impact.
I emphasize this to remind you who here is in control of your writing. You and only you. As heartbreakingly miserable this may sound, you really are the only person who cares with such intensity and anguish about your writing.
What does this mean? It means you have no control over the editors and/or agents who reject you. You have no control over the anonymous reading public. What do you influence? You choose the themes, the content, the topics, the voice. You choose what thrills and sings to you. You choose the time and energy you put into all of this. You choose to press send.
In other words, your writing is on you, and only you. Period, end of story.
The other habit I’ve incorporated into my life is, “Do the most important thing first.” How many of us have cluttered up our to do lists and goals with things that are secondary, superficial, unimportant, gleefully checking them off in a way to convince ourselves that we’re getting something done, while avoiding the huge imposing issue that we hope will go away all by itself? (Ahem, like that writing you’ve been claiming you want to do?)
Who decides what the most important thing is? You, and only you. You are the only person who gets to decide how important writing is to you. No one else.
This may seem daunting and scary, but the way I see it is that it demonstrates how truly powerful we are. Yes! These words and ideas are mine! My schedule for getting them on the page solely mine! The decision to press send, me, me, me!
So let me presume for a moment that you are nodding in agreement with me. You realize, yes, your writing falls under both your area of concern and area of influence and you are ready! You are so ready! Your idea is fresh, crisp and brilliant, if only you could get the words on the page, if only you could press send.
Why then do you have writer’s block?
Like Ann Patchett, I don’t believe in writer’s block. She says sit at your laptop without any wireless access long enough and sooner or later you will get words on the page. Tends to work for me.
But I do believe in writer’s terror, or writer’s fear, or writer’s anxiety. Because the moment we have the beautiful, crisp perfect poem, short story, essay, novel in our mind, we want it to remain perfect. And we know from experience that that will never ever happen once we get our words out on the page. We are convinced of it, and, frankly, we’re right. The writing on the page will be flawed and filled with imperfections.
So nothing is put down, for fear of marring our pristine, impeccable vision.
I feel you, I believe you, I hear you. But I can’t get those words down for you. See above. Accept the fact that once on the page your ideas will be less than stellar. That’s what revisions are for.
We are also terrified by our expectations: this poem, essay, novel, article, will change our life and the world. We don’t want to blow this chance.
Short answer: abandon these expectations; do the work.
Other ways we avoid ruining our perfect theoretical creations:
Conferences: Yes, I love conferences! The energy, the excitement, the creative enthusiasm of like minds. I’m not arguing against these wonderful restoratives, I’m reminding you not to use them in place of doing the actual work. Sometimes these events are so invigorating you feel as if you have arrived to your well-deserved place in the literary world, but you must do the work as well.
Research: Some writers love falling down the rabbit hole of research, and I suspect it is a way of feeling a sense of accomplishment, all in a good cause, without having to do that pesky work of a shitty first draft.
Taking care of other people: Yes, women, I’m talking to you. I’m not saying to abandon your loved ones, I’m just gently suggesting this is one of the excuses we use. Again, only you can decide for yourself what is the most important thing to be done each day.
Doing “other writing” because somehow the stakes are lower: full confession, I wasn’t going to write this post cuz I didn’t see how I could fit it into my schedule. Then I realized I could do it, and only do it, after my daily word count.
All right, you’ve done the writing, you’ve done the work. You’ve even researched your favorite market for this particular piece, and a dozen back up targets. But still, you hesitate.
Not pressing send: if no one rejects it, it remains a jewel.
Listen up: rejection is the price of admission into the literary world. For some, the very few, the very lucky or the very anointed, admission came easily. For the rest of us, it’s a different matter. For me it’s been like mountain climbing with an ice pick.
I was tickled when WWS invited me to write this because the Kenyon Review had published “The Upholsterer.” But what I really felt compelled to detail for you was all the hidden work and navigation that has to come before you press send.
Once all that work is done, here is my process:
1. I wrote a story that sang to me emotionally.
2. I incorporated or addressed the critical feedback from my first readers.
3. Because I really loved this story, I targeted 7 top-tier publications.
4. I pressed send.
Good luck, gentle writers.
Please join us in submitting to tier one journals at our 5th Annual WWS Submission Blitz on September 15th. For this online event, we invite women, women-identifying and nonbinary writers all over the country to submit their work to top tier journals for one day en masse as a call to action for parity in publishing. This event is inspired by the work of Vida, Women in Literary Arts and VIDA Count.
Désirée Zamorano is an award-winning short story writer and the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Amado Women. Her work has appeared online and in print, including the LA Review of Books, The Toast, Catapult and the Kenyon Review. She is the director of Occidental College’s Community Literacy Center.