I’ve been writing for a long time, but privately. The thing is, the more you write, the more you want to belong in a community of writers. This happened to me in the Writing Community on Twitter/X. I discovered the daily micro-fiction community called Vss365. So this is a story that is only abou…
I’ve been writing for a long time, but privately. The thing is, the more you write, the more you want to belong in a community of writers. This happened to me in the Writing Community on Twitter/X. I discovered the daily micro-fiction community called Vss365. So this is a story that is only about 40 words long. I did one every day for 365 days: now a book in pdf. Even though I had already written a 70k manuscript years before, this was an amazing thing in my progress as someone concerned with craft.
At the same time, I was struck by how many lit mags live in this community as well. I tried more word counts: 100, 700, 1000, 5-7000, 10,000. Then I started submitting last year and competing for the first time (Reedsy contest) and, hey; I made it to the finalists category. I’ve had two CNF pieces published. So twenty short stories in 2023 - 10 rejections - 9 submissions pending, and just like that, Ben, I’m off to the races.
I am working on longer fiction too, but the shorter formats are so amazing, I’m reading as many anthologies as I can: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Evelyn Waugh, Raymond Carver, etc, etc.
Happy to get rejected, happy to get accepted because I'm too driven now to stop!
Haha yes! It's kind of addicting right? Once you get over the hump of rejections there are soooo many possibilities. I've definitely written way different works than I ever would have through submitting to lit mags. I'm very glad to hear you are enjoying the lessons.
Hey Ben, what an awesome lesson! Thank you.
I’ve been writing for a long time, but privately. The thing is, the more you write, the more you want to belong in a community of writers. This happened to me in the Writing Community on Twitter/X. I discovered the daily micro-fiction community called Vss365. So this is a story that is only about 40 words long. I did one every day for 365 days: now a book in pdf. Even though I had already written a 70k manuscript years before, this was an amazing thing in my progress as someone concerned with craft.
At the same time, I was struck by how many lit mags live in this community as well. I tried more word counts: 100, 700, 1000, 5-7000, 10,000. Then I started submitting last year and competing for the first time (Reedsy contest) and, hey; I made it to the finalists category. I’ve had two CNF pieces published. So twenty short stories in 2023 - 10 rejections - 9 submissions pending, and just like that, Ben, I’m off to the races.
I am working on longer fiction too, but the shorter formats are so amazing, I’m reading as many anthologies as I can: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Evelyn Waugh, Raymond Carver, etc, etc.
Happy to get rejected, happy to get accepted because I'm too driven now to stop!
Again, thank you for your wonderful lessons.
Haha yes! It's kind of addicting right? Once you get over the hump of rejections there are soooo many possibilities. I've definitely written way different works than I ever would have through submitting to lit mags. I'm very glad to hear you are enjoying the lessons.
"I've definitely written different works than I ever would have tried..." Exactly! In part, these words answer the question, Why submit?