NaNoWriMo Writing Tip of the Week #5

Soliciting Your Work

You may well ask what sort of authority I have to advise anybody on this matter. "Do you have any publishing deals?" you're no doubt asking. "Have you ever even spoken to an editor? My God - do you even have an agent? You didn't even make it past the second day of NaNoWriMo, did you?!"

Well, no. Because any motivation aside from food is wasted on me. I'm basically a small performing animal. I have, however, had stories accepted for publication - twice. Once when I was fifteen and sent an essay in to a Seventeen Magazine Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants contest, and again a few months ago at Hoot Review, where they'll soon be publishing my two-sentence story on a postcard. That's a 66.6-repeating percent success rate, which means I'm pretty much a seasoned professional by now.

Still, I'll understand if you want to take this list of My Path to Staggering Success and change the title to "How Not to Get Something Published."

1. Do your research. Prep exhaustively. The best thing about calling yourself a writer is that everything you do can be considered research. No matter what you're doing, you can claim that you have a character who does that very thing.
   
   This is especially helpful when you fancy yourself an autobiographer. "I cannot write about life unless I have first lived it!"
   
   Actually, I think Lena Dunham said that once, or something like it. And now she has a multi-million dollar book deal. But I bet most of what she did to prepare for that was probably just to do mundane things like stand around and eat cereal. In different places. Like, Chapter 4: Eatin' Cereal at the Dentist. Chapter 5: Cheerios in London!
   
   . . . Forget I said that. For Cereal is going to be the name of my memoirs. I claimed it on the interwebs, and now it is mine.
   
2. Write something. Length doesn't matter. Quality is in the eye of the beholder. So just write your heart's song. Read it aloud to your houseplants once a day for a week. Don't water them, and keep them away from sun. If they're still alive when the week is done, you'll know that it was the power of your words alone that has sustained and nourished them. If the plants are dead, however, then I'm sorry. You're just not ready.
   
3. Find a place to submit your work. Read through their submission guidelines and formatting policies, and then disregard them. Your work cannot be contained by such stifling boundaries. In fact, those guidelines are really just a test; editors want to see if you have the imagination and boldness to create your own rules. So write your story in different shades of maroon lipstick, all on one long piece of toilet paper! Mix blood and bacon grease together and paint your words on a side of beef! Tattoo each word of your story on a different person; never make the story public!
   
   . . . Wait.
   
   If you want to self publish, try slipping a copy of your story into each of your neighbors' newspapers before they wake up, or tape a copy on a phone pole like a LOST CAT sign.
   
4. Wait for the money and fame to roll in.

There were better pictures, but that coin says Nemo on the side!

Image via Channel 4.