Perils While Submitting One’s Work

I have long felt the urge (or the push) to submit my work out into the general marketplace. In fact, the urgency is not so much for my writing to find its way in the world but for the whole Christian voice to begin to emerge here there and everywhere—in print, in film, on stage, in art galleries, in festivals.

For decades, I’ve prayed most Wednesdays of each week for this to happen. So it was with great joy that I discovered the novels of Charles Martin, an excellent fiction writer who beautifully portrays his characters and the geographical settings in which he places them. So far, I’ve read two: Where the River Ends and Unwritten.

What is also beautiful about this author’s work is the way he seamlessly integrates the spiritual (or the religious) into the narrative arc. Most of us who study literature (and hopefully want to write decently ourselves) understand that much of what is done in the name of religious fiction falls far below the standard of basic literary excellence. Some of these works that make literate folk cringe are what are called “message novels”—storylines that are contrived to convince, to expound, to lecture, to persuade. They are often sermonettes in disguise—and not very good disguises when all is measured out.

Martin’s spirituality and faith meanings are seamlessly integrated into his storyline. And to someone like me, someone longing for Christian voices to rise in the mainstream of American fiction, reading his work is a joy. AND—I’ve considered writing him and letting him know that probably before he ever put his first word to the page, there was a faithful group of Christian writers praying for gifted creators like him to rise up in the publishing culture.

Thanks to many of you, I also now have other suggestions as to published authors to read who have been successful at this kind of writing enterprise. Their books have been ordered and I’m eager to spend my late afternoons and evenings on a reading adventure.

However, I’m also receiving holy nudges in my own soul—well, more like undeniable kicks in my own creative gut. What am I going to do about the piles and files of writing that are sitting in boxes and drawers, all of which I have never submitted outside of the safe circle of friends and readers in my little Christian subculture?

All right, all right, I’m going, I’m working on it. I’ll make an effort.

The long COVID isolation made this the perfect moment for creative work to be organized. Not only that, it is also the opportune time to research the marketplace. Our once-a-week podcast, Before We Go, requires just enough creation time but not too much. And David Mains is the “show-runner” on this. I just fill in the conversational gaps for our weekly husband-and-wife taped dialogue.

So, given all that, research is where submitting starts.

I’ve subscribed to 12 Christian periodicals and to 12 well-known secular periodicals. Each of them has a particular way they receive submitted articles. Some only want a query letter. All describe what kind of work they are seeking. Many ask you to submit your work as emails in the body of your letter, not as an attachment. Et cetera, et cetera. All this required a week’s work (at least) of research. My writing study is filled with stacks of magazines, notes I’ve made about my research, and the files of past writing I’d put away and forgotten I’d ever created.

I’ve been re-reading my own work over the last two weeks (I rarely read my own writing beyond checking at publication for printer’s errors—of which, no matter how careful the editing process, there are always several). And frankly, I’ve been asking, What on earth was I thinking, letting all this stuff sit around?

So, I’ve implored the God who is pushing me to do this work to also walk ahead, beside and behind me to get what feels absolutely overwhelming: to get all these piles re-edited, retyped according to submission formulas, and sent out the door.

I finished one article, pulled down my huge-volume Writer’s Market 2020 and flipped to the periodicals (Consumer Magazines) section. Becoming familiar with WM2020 is itself a day-long undertaking. Lo and behold, the last periodical before the DISABILITIES section had been circled by me in some other, forgotten time. I read it: “THE SUN. 90% freelance written. The Sun publishes all kinds of writing, though we favor work of a personal nature.”

I spy God! Almost all my work emerges from my life journey and the lessons I’ve learned and am learning before I go. Many periodicals do not accept this category—personal essay. So, not only am I submitting, submitting, submitting, but I’m thinking about how to change my writing style. Fortunately, I was contracted last year to develop AOA’s (“Articles of Authority”) by one of the largest worldwide, faith-based development organizations. This proved to me that I could undertake substantial journalism projects. I have been asked if I would do some more writing of that kind for the same group this year.

Consequently, with two hands at my computer and with my heart pleading in a form of ongoing intercessory prayer, I have sent out two submission inquiries so far to secular magazines. My goal is to send out four or five a week. Due to the Article of Authority assignments, I know I am also capable of good journalism.

This may be pure craziness, but then, I’ve discovered God kind of delights in those of us who are willing to be holy fools—particularly if they think they are doing something He’s pushing them to do.

How about you? Do you have a crazy scheme that’s been bubbling up in your soul? Want to tell someone about it? Believe me, I’m all ears.

Karen Mains

Reminder!

The Soulish Food e-mails are being posted biweekly on the Hungry Souls Web site. Newcomers can look that over and decide if they want to register on the Web site to receive the biweekly newsletter. You might want to recommend this to friends also. They can go to www.HungrySouls.org.

Karen Mains

BOOK CORNER

On Writer's Block:
A New Approach to Creativity
by Victoria Nelson

One of the things I realized about my approach to submitting my work outside of the evangelical religious publishing world was that I was feeling a kind of dread. No one likes to be rejected. I’m sophisticated enough to know that a new author trying to break into a new field and basically being unknown in that marketplace is going to receive a lot of refusals.

That dread was keeping me from taking the risk of submitting my work and having it rejected. I made an attitude change, however, in one “middle-of-the-night” listening session. Why are you so fearful? prodded that inner voice. If you’re doing what I want you to do, the results are up to me. You are simply responsible for being obedient.

Yep. Yep. Right, I thought. I know. I know. At least I could use all my efforts as an act of prayer. Perhaps these prayers then would become unseen motivators in the universe of Christian writing to enable more gifted, better instructed communicators than I to deliver spiritual meaning to the world at large.

Then I thought, Oh, come on. Just look at this as a lark. Have fun. Be silly. Send that article on “medicine for mouth disease” [the medicine being mega-doses of verses from Proverbs] to The New Yorker!

Victoria Nelson recommends that very approach in her book On Writer’s Block. A few quotes:
• “The core of the running or the writing experience is pleasure in the act.”
• “In the beginning, before it was duty, art was child’s play.”
• “An important principle emerges here. Creative discipline grows out of pleasure, not out of tyranny or self-abuse. People who have a strong natural tendency to do what they like are those most likely to find discipline an easy responsibility to assume.”
• “Loving oneself—is one of the most difficult life tasks to master, and it is integrally related to the creative process.”

So, I am now writing with a different attitude; maybe I can stun, maybe I can shock, maybe I can cause some outrage. Maybe I can slip around secular editors’ well-developed defenses. OK. OK. Now, this is starting to become fun. Maybe I can be outrageous.