Sorry We're Prosed: Is it time for a submissions break?

When to let work sit in the drawer

Hello again,

For those of you who are new subscribers, and there’s quite a few of you, a quick bit of explanation.

Every month I put together a curated list of writing opportunities. Here’s the latest one and you can see the full archive here. Several of the ones mentioned lower down in July’s post should still be open.

But whenever I feel like it, usually every other month, I also write something about the process of writing and submitting.

Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash

I’m not really in the business of writing advice, but since I started this newsletter as a way to complement the work I was already doing submitting, I do sometimes share what I’ve learned about seeking publication for my work.

Topics have included ambition, hope, and regular breakdowns of how successful my submissions actually are.

I also tend to hide a few opportunities that will be closed before the next monthly round-up goes out at the bottom of these occasional missives, so if that’s all you’re after, feel free to scroll down. The next opportunities round-up will be out some time next week.

But for those interested, today I’m going to talk about whether it’s ever a good idea to take a break from submitting.

Why pause submitting?

I have been regularly sending out my work to literary magazines and competitions since May 2020. While I never quite manage to send as many as I would like, it’s rare that a month goes by that I don’t send at least one submission.

Recently I have been wondering if I should take a break and deliberately not send anything else out for a while. If I do, this would be a tricky thing for me. When I wrote about hope, I mentioned that keeping eggs in many baskets is a good way for me to stop fixating on one particular opportunity.

But as I also said in the same post, I do tend to get too caught up in certain opportunities, and perhaps spend too much brain power worrying about my ongoing submissions that I could be using to write.

So today I will outline my reasons for and against taking a short submissions break - perhaps just a month or two - in the hope that it will help me to decide whether to do so. And I hope that it can be useful to anyone who is having similar thoughts.

The case for

Perhaps the biggest issue I face in writing fiction is that it rarely yields immediate rewards.

I am by trade a journalist, and by the time I entered the workforce, online was very much the avenue of focus for most publications. In most of my jobs, I have written at least one thing every day that is published online immediately. My record is 10 stories in a single day.

Though more people have undoubtedly read my journalism than have read my creative writing, there are many similarities. Much like publishing a piece of creative work, publishing an article carries that same frisson of possibility. Maybe this is the one that makes an impact, that a lot of people read, that increases its author’s status.

But even if it doesn’t make a splash, there’s something addictive about frequent publication. It’s not just about the reader, but about having the sense of accomplishment that comes form something being ‘done’. When I send off a submission, I get some semblance of this satisfaction, just from the sense of possibility that it could be published.

I worry that I need to wean myself off this instant gratification when it comes to creative work, and accept that much of it could sit in a drawer for years - that this may even be the best thing for it.

Sitting with work for longer is another reason I am thinking of pausing submissions. I want to make more progress, and to have a bigger store of finished work.

Most importantly I want to focus on the work itself, and to stop getting quite so distracted by themed callouts and other things that tend to get me distracted, rooting around for an old idea that might just fit if only I can write that instead of whatever I was currently working on.

The effort I expend on submissions is no small feat: I wish I could just blast them to several places at once, but I tend to tweak each piece for each target. And for all that to lead to the uphill slog of rejections can leave me feel that I’ve wasted time.

Ultimately, all of this drives towards the primary argument in favour of taking a submissions break, which is that I think I need to find some confidence in own work that derives from the work itself.

The case against

Since I started submitting seriously, I have built up something of a habit. I think of it as a muscle that is easiest to flex with frequent use.

Perhaps you will recognise this feeling too. Essentially, it takes a certain level of confidence to send your work to strangers and let them judge it. By this point, I don’t even think about that factor, as I’m mostly just focused on the practicalities of the submission. But I wonder whether taking a break would make it any harder to come back?

Something I like about being a frequent submitter is that I have plenty of feedback in the form of rejection data. Personalised or encouraging rejections are especially helpful, as they let me know I’m on the right track.

And as much as I can feel worn down by a bad run, I don’t want to let general fatigue with the whole process get to me too much, such that a break turns into a hiatus, which turns into giving up altogether. This writing is a tough business and even if I’m only making small gains, I prefer to keep my hand in than to go down any path that might lead to me deciding it’s too hard.

But perhaps the most significant factor for me is that I hate to leave work unutilised. If I have something finished, edited, and lying around in my files without being sent anywhere, it frustrates me.

I like to think of my finished work going out into the world and knocking on doors while I get down to business on my unfinished work. It seems an efficient way of doing things.

And on a related point, I can’t stand to think of missing out on opportunities that seem ideal. Thankfully, there’s little chance of that given that, whatever I decide to do, I’ll keep this newsletter going. Gathering up opportunities for my monthly listings allows me to keep an eye on what’s out there.

In fact, I think the most likely outcome is that I’ll arrive at a happy medium, taking a break from frequent submissions, but trying not to miss out on anything that happens to crop up and seems too good to be missed. We’ll see.

Have you taken deliberate or inadvertent submissions breaks? Did you find it helped you get work done and come back refreshed, or did it make it harder to get back in the game? Let me know in the comments below.

And now for the hard core, a few bonus opportunities which are closing soon.

Popshot Quarterly, where I have previously published a story, is taking submissions on the theme ‘Roots’ until early morning on 2 September. It’s a British magazine with beautiful illustrations.

Paying market for literary science fiction and fantasy Orion’s Belt will close its current submissions window at the end of the month.

Stories for the next issue of Hearth & Coffin on the theme ‘Creature Feature’ can be sent in until 31August.

Autistic writers, Laura Kate Dale is closing submissions for an anthology project on joy and positivity experienced by autistic people at the end of August.

Emerging translators who work on translating certain languages (see list) into English have until 31 August to apply for the UK National Writing Centre’s mentorship scheme. Mentees get guidance from an experienced translator, a bursary, access to various events, and publication in an anthology.

Split Lip Magazine is looking for new volunteer readers and an assistant editor to help with memoir submissions. There will be a brief application window starting 29 August. I don’t know much more yet but follow them on social media and subscribe to their email newsletter to stay up to date.