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Unsurprisingly, some people at UW-M have found my website and said they’ve tooled around it. I don’t know how many, if any, regularly read this blog because none have commented (though you’re welcome, nay, encouraged to comment.) It’s fairly common for students to Google each other, and I’ve noticed a spike in the number of people who find this site by searching my name. (Which is better than finding this site by searching “priapism pictures” or “somnophilia video” which are currently tied for fourth-place. But let’s forget that for now.)

During break at one of my classes some other students and I talked about writing and publication, and I mentioned that I’d made some sales. Sales, in many minds, are the sign of a Legitimate Writer, and I can’t argue that. But this isn’t to say unpublished writers are illegitimate. Looking at my own bibliography, I’ve made fewer sales than I’ve wished but more than I’ve expected. I’m sure it’s the same for a lot of people.

But the only way you get sales is by submitting stuff, and submitting often. I haven’t crunched the numbers for awhile (and the computer I’m on doesn’t have Access for me to check my database) but I think I’m around 20 rejections per sale. Awhile back, I wanted to lower this ratio. Now, not so much. The only stat that really counts is sales because that’s all anyone sees. If it takes you 1000 rejections to get 10 decent sales, it’s okay because no one sees the other 990. You don’t put them in a cover letter. They don’t go in your bio.

Here’s what I believe: writers of all levels should always be trying to improve but they should simultaneously always be sending stuff out. I feel like a lot of writers only want to send out works of pure genius. Which are hard to come by. A better goal is to try and send out competently written, entertaining stories while you work towards that magnum opus.

The other irony is that a lot of people who give you credit for having some decent sales will never have read those stories. They could be terrible stories for all they know. They could be the kind of story that you read and think, “Hell, I write better than that.” But there’s no doubt that even a few decent sales earn a lot of street cred.

Writers really only control what they write and where they submit. And really, that’s for the best. I’ve been guilty about assigning meaning to the numbers but I’ve cooled on that. A few stats do matter: words written; stories submitted; sales. The higher the first two, the more likely that last one will be higher too.

None of the above is original. I know that. But it’s funny how sometimes the same writing advice means different things to you at different points in your career and the writers you encounter. I’m surrounded by a lot of burgeoning writers who are producing publishable and near-publishable work, but I’m worried they’ll never know it. Sometimes I feel like saying, “Do me a favor: promise you’ll send this story/poem out at least ten times.”

Maybe I should.

Current Mood: Headache |
Currently Listening To – CPR Streaming Classical Music