You Take It On Faith, You Take It to the Heart
On Submitting Work (with apologies to and admiration for Tom Petty)
The waiting. It really is the hardest part.
Writing the poems? Hard, but a good kind of hard, one that taxes the brain and the heart but has many rewards. The collection of the poems into a manuscript? Hard, but an interesting, satisfying kind of hard, like completing a puzzle or finally figuring out a new piece of technology. Sending the manuscript out to publishers? Hard, but mostly a practical kind of hard, hitting the wallet and the juggling of deadlines and guidelines. But…
The waiting to hear if someone thinks that all that hard work is worth taking a chance on? That truly is the hardest part. (Cue Tom Petty…)
Most open submission periods or contests have at least a three-five month span between closing and reporting, which is not unreasonable. Manuscripts must be read/screened, sometimes pre-screened to be sent to a judge. This takes time. But, when you are circulating a manuscript (or two, as this crazy person right here is doing), the waiting is not only difficult, but brings up so many other issues and questions.
For instance, one manuscript has received one flat no and two finalist nods so far. I have to admit, with those finalist nods I “took it to the heart” in two ways. One, positively. Yay, it was worthy/good enough to reach the top crops of submitted books for that period! But on the other hand, the heart was pierced with disappointment—if I was so close, why couldn’t it be me?
So I am still waiting. It is currently out at three different presses, one that should be reporting soon and the others set to report in May. Do I wait until May and see what happens? Or do I send to one or two more publishers whose contest periods run from now through April 1? Do I assume failure and send again, or do I wait?
The second manuscript is at three publishers, all of whom run on a query/open submission model. It has gotten a request for full from one query, and is in progress at the other two places on Submittable. This one seems easier to wait on because no contest models are involved. Easier as in slightly less stressful. Emphasis on the slightly.
And it’s the same with packets of individual poems. Send and wait (multiple times) anywhere from 1-8 months. Many times when a poem is finally published, it is far removed from the time when it was written, which feels a little strange. It’s often not at all like my current writing—a different mindset, a different style, a different obsession. That comes from the waiting.
I know that novelists often work for years on a book before/if it ever sees publication, so waiting is a part of creative writing, as far as I can tell. In the meantime, I’m writing new work and almost have a brand new chapbook ready to be submitted.
Sigh. Cue new cycle.
Cue the waiting all over again. In the words of Mr. Petty, “don’t let it kill you, baby, don’t let it get to you…”
PROMPT
Use a thesaurus to list synonyms for “wait.” Use those synonyms as end words in a poem or use them as acrostics.
Write a poem about a time that you had to wait for something you desperately wanted. It could be waiting for a gift you asked for as a child, or waiting for a phone call from a crush. Anything!