A Journey Update

I do apologize for the long gap in postings. Since I was contemplating abandoning the blog, I was not updating it. Instead I was working on a new blog idea; possibly one revolving around my experiences volunteering? Thoughts? Anyway, for the moment I shall continue blogging about my writing adventures.

Ever since the last writers meeting I went to on May 26, 2010, I have been on a marketing frenzy. The guest speaker primarily focused on how one could sell their short stories, essays, narratives, and poems to magazines. I found her speech to be very helpful and chalked full with information.

The speaker was the award-winning writer Windy Lynn Harris who specializes in short stories and memoir. She has had her work published over sixty times in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies all across the country.

According to her and the handout she passed around, there are six steps to getting short stories, essays, and poetry published.

1. Categorize your work
2. Find potential markets
3. Follow the Writer’s Guidelines
4. Format your manuscript
5. Write a cover letter
6. Submit

Ever since I was in middle school (F.Y.I. I am in college now) I have been trying to pawn my stories and poems off on poor unsuspecting magazines editors. Looking back, I can see why they were rejected time and time again, but my biggest problem was finding places to send my work. Even though I was constantly getting standard rejection letters, I was still sending my so-called stories to the same magazines. Thanks to Windy I have recently discovers the magic of Duotrope.com.

The website is called Duotrope’s Digest, and it is a searchable database of current fiction and poetry markets. You enter in the theme, genre, length, etc of you poem or story, and it will recommend places for you to submit it. Most places pay very little, if at all, but it is a great way to start getting your name out there, and to potentially get feedback from editors. Bigger magazines give you a cookie-cutter response, but some of the smaller magazines and webzines are more personal.

The next day after the meeting, I finished one of my short stories, followed Windy’s step’s, used Duotrop.com, and sent it off to eight different places. It had not even been twenty-four hours before I received a congratulatory E-mail (all of my submissions had been electronic) from Yesteryear Fiction, announcing the publication of my story on July fourth! This is very exciting news, at least for my family and me. Yesteryear is a webzine, and I will post a link to my story once it is published.

I am now currently finding places to send several poems, finishing up two short stories, and am in the planning stages for several novels.