Submit!
Submit!
Submit!
I hate that word! It makes me think of whips and chains, servitude, sweat shops, and long hours of unappreciated work, pouring out my soul—oh, but I forgot. I like writing! It’s just the submitting that gets me.
Why can’t we present our work, put it forward, propose, offer, or tender it to the publishers and editors? (Don’t you love a thesaurus?) Why do we have to submit, surrender, capitulate, succumb, or resign ourselves to giving up our hard-earned words to possible, even likely rejection, even if that is the only way to get paid!
I don’t submit easily. I rebel at the very thought, my neck stiff and my head unbowed over a hot keyboard. Therefore, I don’t have the requisite twelve manuscripts—submissions—out there on those editors’ desktops waiting to be discovered on the right day. There is a magic to getting accepted, but it requires submission. YIKES!
The pain of it! I have to submit, again and again and again, to suffer the slings and arrows of …okay, maybe that is a bit too dramatic. But then maybe it’s time for me to take a more positive point of view, and relax--maybe get into a bit of S&M—Submitting & Manuscripts!
At least now I don’t need a list of addresses, envelopes, and stamps, a ream of paper, a new printer cartridge. I can submit all night long…oh, and I need to write the twelve manuscripts!
NOW! We have Substack and can cobble together our manuscripts here while we work up the courage to submit…to the process.
Offer is a definitely a better word!
Submit is a disgusting word, isn't it? Submission. Giving in doesn't come easy. I like to think I proffer my stories, like sweet or savory treats on a tray--okay, maybe sour in my case. I can't help it if the person on the other end of the tray has no taste, now can I? I just move my tray along to the next victim...