The Mantra Repeated

[mrissa]

I send stories out and do not think about them. I cannot control how quickly they return home, or with what answer. All I can control is the writing of them, including the revising of them. I cannot control the editor's mood, the editor's other workload, the editor's health, the editor's elderly relatives' health, the editor's coffee mishaps near manuscripts...none of it is up to me. What is up to me is writing the best story I can, revising it as best I can, and sending it out to the best market for it, as near as I can figure. And that is all.

This is extremely hard to remember some days, but the days when I can are the best days, because they involve the least tearing of the hair and gnashing of the teeth. It's particularly hard to remember when I have to go through the submission file and figure out which stories have been out unreasonably long considering the market and what, if anything, I will do about it.

Marketing sucks, sucks, sucks. It's better than a command system, certainly. But still with the sucking.

If I could just be unreasonable and think of editors as something other than human beings, I think that might help. Alas, they keep going around passing Turing Tests, and while that doesn't necessarily mean anything about their origins, it means that they deserve a certain level of humanity credit from me. Well, except for the ones who don't, but I don't submit to them, and there's that.

Also, I think the list is entirely out of control. It has morphed from "things to do this week, in a reasonable facsimile of this world" to "things to do this week in a world containing twice as many hours and no friends, family members, or enjoyable/sanity-maintaining hobbies whatsoever." The list must be altered, as the world will not be, nor would I want it to be altered in that direction even if it would.

In happier news, my hair still smells like cinnamon, cloves, and allspice from the oatmeal raisin cookies I made for markgritter this afternoon. (My mom says oatmeal plus raisin means it's breakfast food, not dessert food. Silly Mom.) Also, I think I will enjoy The Game of Kings if I can get my brain to stop popping up offering a candygram for Mungo at every turn. Silly brain.

Comments

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

I can totally get behind oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You can totally have oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast. They're sitting on the counter.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

This kind of attitute is much harder to maintain in short political essays, which are topical and timely. They go stale if not placed quickly.

B

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yep, totally different market, and I don't envy you the topicality issues. And if an editor who has usually gotten back to you within a week doesn't get back to you, it's probably worth making sure they received the essay in the first place, whereas doing that with fiction submissions would only annoy the editors.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am entirely too associational for my own good. I walked through the Portland Rose Garden having to stifle the voice in my head that kept repeating, "A wed wose, how owiginal."

[fiddledragon]

Response from Friday :) The song is actually called "Minneapolis and St. Paul" by Jennifer Grimm on her CD entitled All of Me (self produced)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Neat, thanks.

"This Land Is Your Land" also has a Cities reference: "As I went walking that ribbon of highway, I saw above me that endless skyway; I saw below me that Golden Valley...." :)

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

ah yes, marketing, that annoying thing we must do on the off chance an editor might want to buy something we've written.