December 27th, 2009 / 10:01 pm
Behind the Scenes & Snippet
You do send your Very Best work Every time when submitting to a literary magazine, right?
Tags: Literary Magazine ethics, Literary Magazine Tips
Sean Lovelace
December 27th, 2009 / 10:01 pm
Behind the Scenes & Snippet
December 27th, 2009 / 10:01 pm
Behind the Scenes & Snippet
I have always found this mystifying. I would never send anything out that wasn’t as good as I believed it could be (more or less) but they seem to want me to compare all my stories and send them my favorite.
How am I supposed to know which of my stories is my favorite? I don’t even know what that means.
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Well, best for the moment. . . Isn’t best a relative term?. . . Best for me, but maybe not for him or her or you. . . Best compared to what I’ve done before or will do later. . . Best, given how I’m feeling at the moment. . . . . . Best in terms of what I’m capable of doing under current specific circumstances. . . Sometimes you need to have someone tell you this isn’t your best in order to get to something better in a revision. . . Writing is a process, not an act (cliche alert!), by which I mean best is what I’m striving for, even if never reaching
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December 28th, 2009 / 4:54 pmNathan Tyree—
I’m glad you said this.
I’m mystified by “best”. Everything I send out cannot be my best, I just have to feel that it is at that moment. Your best story (poem, essay, whatever) is like highlander: there can be only one.
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December 28th, 2009 / 6:06 pmhowie good—
i also wonder about standards of best. whose holds sway? is there an immutable set of standards that should be applied in every situation, for every type of wrork? or does best change as what you’re writing or hoping to achieve changes? my lyric poetry can’t be judged on the same basis as my dystopian prose poems; or, rather, they can, but it would be stupid and unfair — like criticizing a dog for not purring like a cat.
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I only send work that is “as good as it has to be for me to get published in X journal.”
jk?
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December 28th, 2009 / 5:06 pmdavid erlewine—
the question mark sealed this one. nice
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December 30th, 2009 / 12:13 pmRebekah Silverman—
So sweet.
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I’m quite certain that writers don’t always submit their very best given the quality of writing I’ve seen come into the PANK submission queue from “bigger name” writers who, I guess think we’ll be happy with their dregs. It’s quite fun disabusing them of that notion.
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December 28th, 2009 / 3:14 amMike Meginnis—
This is something people say about Puerto’s submissions pool as well, and I guess I’m confused about something other people understand intuitively. Because while
A: we are definitely getting better submissions, on average, than we have in the past, and
B: this seems to have happened as a result of some degree of perceived increase in prestige, or at least the increase in quality apparent in our last issue
still, C: I do not understand how writers can successfully identify their weaker work such that they send it to us in the first place. I do have stories that I consider clearly weaker than my best stories, but I’m still very much a student — when I’ve written long enough to become a “name,” whether or not I actually manage such a feat, how will I know which of my stories are worse than the others? In theory my output should have smoothed, by that point, such that I can’t tell which stories are markedly worse than the others. It just seems like an incredible cognitive power, to me, to be able to intentionally send weaker work to certain magazines, and I don’t understand how people do it.
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December 28th, 2009 / 3:15 amMike Meginnis—
I guess my question is, how do you know (once you are out of your early and very formative years as a writer) what your strongest and weakest stories are?
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December 28th, 2009 / 1:44 pmmjm—
this is how:
take a wish bone shaped object from inside your chicken, or, if you’re a vegan, break a stick off a bush that looks like a two-forked thing, and then print out your poems and lay them all on the floor.
stand above them.
hold this forked object out with your index finger and thumb. tenderly.
the piece your forked object wavers towards is your best.
duh
That’s why I’m always in deep melancholy after getting rejection.
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No.
I save my Very Best Work. I’ve thought about this quite a lot. I have 2 unpublished stories that I consider my “Best” and so far I have submitted each one only twice to competitions.
I never knowing submit shit, though sometimes when I read a rejected sub it seems to crumble to shit before me. Then I’m embarrassed that I sent it out and just hope that the ed who rejected doesn’t think I was taking the piss. I think that I play around with flash a lot more than with short stories, and some of my experiments aren’t as successful as I may hope. But sure, I sub words that I don’t think are equal to my best, but I still think they are good words.
I don’t think any writer consistently matches their own best, reading big name author collections there are usually stand out stories, it’s the same for all of us.
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December 28th, 2009 / 11:56 amdavid erlewine—
yup yup
i’ve sent some stuff out that seemed okay but then a month or two later after a slew of rejections…i read it and think wtf am i doing
some writers wait months/years/decades to sub anything until it’s “ready” – i can’t go to the extreme but maybe i am trying to wait longer these days before sending anything “new” out
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i actually hate this distinction
what is very best work?
am i supposed to have a tier of work, that i then take the best piece off of when i think i want to send something out, and then wait for another piece to float to the top when i publish that ‘best’ piece?
send me your interesting work. whether it’s your ‘best’ or not, whatever.
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December 28th, 2009 / 12:26 pmLily Hoang—
i agree with blake. there are stories i know are tighter than others, but are they really “better”? i’m not so sure. then again, i don’t submit so it doesn’t actually matter what i think…
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There are some poems where I think they’re good. And I usually hate stuff (‘nother story), but I send these poems I think are good, out. I do this and they get rejected, sometimes with a note of “we liked it” or sometimes with a form that says “Dear writer”. I go into a deep depression. And then, because its likely a simultaneous submission, or that I sent it out again after a couple of months, it gets accepted. This has happened more than once.
Now, you can say a poem can be a weaker one and an editor can still accept it, but I believe whenever I am sending work that the whole shebang is pretty top counter. That these editors have a pretty discerning eye and the like. So…
What the hell is ones “best work”? Don’t you strive to kick ass every time? Make everything great? I read this article where this poet made the claim, “I came to the realization all I maybe really need are three or four great poems in my book.”
Call me Tom Clancy but I strive to make every poem dope as shit. Every line. Every word. And if I don’t take a long time on one specific poem, if its a quick jot down of a sudden idea or something, that doesn’t necessarily equate its quality. It is what the poem called for.
I am still very much confused by this question.
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December 28th, 2009 / 6:09 pmhowie good—
i empathize with this. . . that is, i’m living it.
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what’s your very best work?
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So “interesting” work is easy and OK to define, but not best?
You are saying, you as a writer, don’t have any idea what is best” to you, yourself?
I think you have some idea. So the question is then: Do you send out different works to different markets, depending on what you feel about that market?
Or is it: should you?
Or: Should I start drinking wine now, or in about four minutes?
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December 28th, 2009 / 4:17 pmBlake Butler—
i don’t send work to markets.
i send work to people. if i send it at all.
the market is where i buy apples.
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December 28th, 2009 / 4:18 pmBlake Butler—
shitty work is often interesting; ‘best’ work is often boring as a peep
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December 28th, 2009 / 5:50 pmMike Meginnis—
It seems like often “best” means “most like our boring-ass story template with one vaguely interesting variation or gimmick that will reassure us we are not always publishing exactly our template.”
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December 30th, 2009 / 12:13 pmRebekah Silverman—
Seconded.
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December 28th, 2009 / 4:18 pmBlake Butler—
you should not drink wine.
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December 28th, 2009 / 4:58 pmNathan Tyree—
I know what the “best” thing I ever wrote is. It’s been published. I can’t send it out anymore. Everyone has to settle for second (third, fourth, fifth) best
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It’s not my very best work until it’s smudged with my own blood and semen, so no.
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markets are people, scrooge.
interesting writing is often shitty.
any work with semen and blood I’m OK with.
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December 28th, 2009 / 5:08 pmdavid erlewine—
this blake – sean stuff is popcorn-worthy, the kind you buy at the movies not the market
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Only if I want it published, do I send out my best.
– -
Okay,
Father Luke
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December 28th, 2009 / 10:05 pmreynard—
i’m thinking about clipping my toenails into points
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December 29th, 2009 / 2:13 ammjm—
dude dont do it. dont do it!
I had this one toe nail that grew crazy long because i was on the streets and had no nail clippers. then when i get back to having a consistent roof over my head, my family gave me an air mattress and i punctured a hole in the damn thing with my toe nail man.
so i got the back up air mattress and i punctured that one!
plus, on some real stuff, i put holes in my socks and tore up some sheets.
think i’m fucking with you i’m for real. dont do it!
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sometimes i send out pieces that aren’t their best b/c i’m so impatient and deluded that they are ready. i used to do this a lot more to places with quick turn around times (hi, lee!)
i have gotten better about such things, for the most part. i can control such tendencies and do another edit on the story with ‘fresh eyes’ and maybe then another and another before sending out. also, i used to carpet bomb journals i liked and now i try to tailor my subs a lot more.
so i guess my answer is hopefully i do a better job but probably still no.
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It’s confusing. At the Cimarron Review we’ve gotten some shitty stories by really good writers. You still have to reject the shitty stories. Surely this isn’t their best work. Not even close.
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part i. its not a simple thing to send something somewhere. I never think, is this the best, or even, is this the best this can be, but, is this good enough. thinking like ‘is this the best’ is an abstract irreality. if i thought that, nothing would ever get sent because everything can always be better or everything can always be worked on longer until i find a new avenue in it that makes it slightly better. at some point i settle for when something feels good to me. i can’t compare that ‘good to me’ to the infinite number of things i could possibly do to a story to determine its potential bestness. we can never be x. we can only ever be the limit of x as x approaches perfection.
part ii. but my mood is not constant. either. one day i say oh this story i’m tired of it, its good enough, no harm in sending it somewhere, i’ll get a rejection, at least i’ll know its a rejection from there. other days i sit on things and say, i think theres more here, i’ll find it another day. somedays i’m desperate for attention and want someone to publish anything i happen to write right now. other times i never want to send anything again ever anywhere because i just want to read. some days some days. i have a thing in a doc up now, 200 words maybe, that has been sitting for a few weeks. i have had no thoughts on sending it anywhere. because. seasons. who cares?
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My fiance says that every new thing I ever write I think is my best. I guess it’s just the excitement over having something finished. I go through phases where I love all of my work, and other phases where I think I’m just a hack. I have started to try sitting on pieces and coming back to them before I send them out. Typically if I don’t like something, I stick it a folder where it is NOT getting submitted to anybody. The work that lives in the active pile is all stuff that I guess I consider my best. Mostly I just try and match work to a certain journal. Whether I’m good at that or not is anybody’s guess.
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Much more keen than my sense of what is good work and what is bad work is my knowing which work flowed out and which work didn’t. Generally the work that flowed out is the better writing. However, I’ve placed enough pieces that were struggles to keep my hope intact regarding all the pieces on which I am currently struggling.
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woke up this morning to two rejections — have a nice day! — one form, one personal and filled with compliments about my writing (yeah, weird). now everything i have written lately is under a shadow.
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Late afternoon acceptance. . . Wow, my stuff just got so much better.
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December 29th, 2009 / 5:28 pmMimi Vaquer—
At least the submissions void is waking up. At this point I’d rather have rejections than silence.
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