Charity Marie Blogs!

Muses about Submitting

I've been doing a lot of submissions this year in an effort to get more updated publication credits and to generate income from my writing. For the first time, I'm focused on both fiction and nonfiction. So far the list of pieces I have either submitted or am submitted are as follows:

Stop the World (Essay)
Shadows of Darkness
Liberty (Essay)
Deuces
Blue
Lost Heritage
Gone Nuts
Metamorphosis of a Mom (Essay)
Protecting Your Child's Mental Health (Essay)

My challenge is there are SO many options out there I have a lot of trouble deciding on where to submit. I have a lot of simultaneous submissions out for contests as they have the largest prizes. But does anyone have experience with this and suggestions? I don't know that these work really rise to the level of a literary magazine (although previous works have and were published in them). While I'm a big believe in Gretsky's "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take", I also realize I have to do a good job of targeting publications. I CANNOT afford to purchase all of these and while I read samples of the work online, that only gets me so far I think. I'm prepared for a veritable FLOOD of rejection letters this spring and beyond.

I was published in an anthology with George Clayton Johnson but I haven't written a piece of literary quality since then. Maybe Lost Heritage falls into that realm but the others are more commercial/genre type fiction. I'm having particular difficulty with finding a home for the first two pieces. I have a digital subscriptions to Writers Market and use it regularly. I also use Duotrope and a lot of free website resources as well as WDC.

Part of what gives rise to this is I recently submitted an essay, Metamorphosis of a Mom for publication to Motherwell. In their rejection letter they invited me to submit something else. *Panic* What do I submit?! I have the mental health article but I'm not sure if it's a fit. I don't want to get it wrong twice as I feel I'd lose credibility.

I appreciate anyone's suggestions and thoughts on this. I think I'm having some submitter's anxiety! lol


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