What?!? Final Friday already?
All right, it’s time for an update. The second short story is still in edit mode. I still feel like it’s just missing something. Okay, tomorrow I must send it somewhere even if I still think it’s not all that.
Who knows, maybe I’m not the best judge of these things and I should really be sending off the stuff that I’m not that happy with. Maybe that’s the secret to overcoming submitaphobia — send out only stuff that I already thinks sucks, then it doesn’t matter if it gets rejected. Argh, that can’t be right. Can it?
To fulfill the terms of my contract I have to finish a third story and send it out, and I have to do this tomorrow, which is looking less likely, but it’s not my fault! Because my laptop picked up some kind of virus while it was in New Orleans (poor dear) and I have been dealing with that instead of finishing the third story.
Okay, maybe the virus is my fault. Somehow. I mean, I don’t usually do any of the stuff that’s likely to get my computer all infected, but who knows, maybe after a few too many cocktails (who knew there would be so many cocktails at a cocktail festival anyway?) I engaged in drunken flagrant unsafe Internetting that I don’t even remember.
It’s one of those Google redirect viruses. Any tips are appreciated.
So, I looked for Internet tips on overcoming submitaphobia and they all pretty much come down to, “Don’t have it.” Well, that’s helpful.
I also see people recommending that writers who want to get published need something called “a thick skin.” Yeah, right. You’re trying to do this thing (writing) that sort of involves taking human emotions and flaying them out on a vivisection table and you’re supposed to have “a thick skin”? Nice try.
My guess — based purely on anecdotal observation — is that some writers are simply more bothered by the submitting and rejection process than others. For whatever reason. Parental approval issues or something, who knows. So it’s not that some writers have a thick skin, it’s just that some of us are ridiculously sensitive in an area that gets poked repeatedly by the rejection process. An area where you need a callus. A callous? Anyway, having a few calluses seems more realistic than “a thick skin” which sounds more like the kind of armoring you find on an armadillo.
Based on The Brain that Changes Itself, I am pretty sure that the key to all of this is to somehow rewrite the neurological pathways of ultimate despair that kick in whenever I think about the rejection process. Drugs? Acupuncture? Foot rubs? Something from Plunderpuss’s store? Really expensive chocolate? The search goes on.