Submitting to...

...to God

Ha! Now that I’ve got you in here, you’re committing to read the entire post, right?

I’ve written a few posts about submitting your work but have I mentioned submitting to the Lord? Allow me to bore you or enlighten you, won’t you?

When I first began writing or should I say, taking my writing seriously, I felt that it was only by the grace of God I made it to where I was in my writing journey. Keep in mind that Submitting to God is not the same as serving. I’ve always served One God and only one God, and no one had to tell me or ask me to serve, I just did/do it.

Submitting to God is placing your trust in Him to carry you, even your writing. I’m not one to babble on and on about nothing, I like to relay a certain positive message in my writing where you walk away thinking and feeling like you’re that much more informed by what you read.

I was kind of honored when on Facebook an author asked, “Who is your favorite female blogger,” and among many replies there was MY name, Joni Zipp! I’m hoping a frenzy of folk Googled my name, found my blog and also found the inspiration they were looking for! I have submitted to God, so only He can get the credit for where my journey goes. And I pray that that is what you see in me when visiting my blog. God shining through every post!

Here’s another example of the fruits of submitting to God:

Many years ago there was a man named Miles that I met who had no other interests but the net, surfing the net, stuff and junk and me. Many months (almost a year) of being intrigued, we met, in person.

The man wasn’t interested in much except surfing the net, working, and gaming. Even I, in all my beauty couldn’t entice him away. One day (I’m sparing you the lengthy portion of the tale) he submitted to God. His whole life changed and as we sit here today, he is a published author.

Many of you can take an educated guess as to who he is, I’m just telling you, sharing with you, that he is a changed man. Does he still surf the net, game, and work? Yes, all of the above, except there is one difference, since he’s placed God front and center, he now has a purpose, loves writing, loves serving the Lord, and loves me! (Well I think he’s always loved me, but under God’s Light, there’s a different ambience surrounding us.)

He submitted to God and I had the pleasure of watching the metamorphosis take place. Yes, he physically and spiritually went through a life-altering change. From being blind to the miracle of seeing again, from being an ungodly person to a person who proclaimed the Lord as his Savior! Does he still sin? Well of course! Romans 3:23 says: “All have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God.” We change and strive NOT to sin but nonetheless we are ALL sinners.

So when I say, ‘Submit to God’ I’m not telling you as if I’m preaching, rather I’m offering you a suggestion in a way to change a negative atmosphere in your writing journey (or life for that matter) into a positive flow of blessings in your life AND your writing.

See, that wasn’t so bad now was it? If your reading this sentence then you made it through the entire post without running away! Thank you and God bless!

Submit it right?

I have taught for many years now that there is a certain set of guidelines to follow upon submitting a piece of writing. Upon the recent publication of my beau, I had to rethink the rules and guidelines.

You see, he is not a ‘writer’ per se, but he does have TWO blogs that would say otherwise. Me, I’m a writer! I claim to be a writer and my only published works received no commission, and I haven’t been submitting like I should be. I’ve been on the learning/ teaching end.

So what made his submission so different? He wrote a blog post called Children of the Corn. Now mind you, he grew up in the country, a farm here in Gibbon Nebraska. He has many stories of growing up out here in the cornfields, tractors and such. I remember asking him recently, “You’ve never seen a sand castle?” His response was, “Have you ever seen a tractor pull?” Well I can honestly say, being a city gal from the east coast, no, no I have never seen a tractor pull. Touché!

He has no idea where he got the idea of submitting the story. But being on the internet many hours of his day, he came across, Country Living, a magazine, and thought that the Corn story would be a good fit for his Children of the Corn tale. He submitted.

He tells me he sent a request for guidelines, but he also said he didn’t wait for the guidelines, he just sent a word document and didn’t think about it again. As a matter of fact he never even told me that he had sent it. He probably just shrugged it off. He’s like that, just lets things roll off his shoulders, as for me, I would have been waiting month after month for a response/ rejection letter.

Not him, he just let it roll. No fear, no anxiety, nothing. Then when the ‘complimentary copy’ of the magazine came in August and the letter said, “Thank you for contributing.” THAT is when he told me, showed me actually, the publication of his story. He then said, “Oh I sent it way back in January. Didn’t think nothing of it.”

Well la di da! I have been writing all my life, the past ten years I have been really learning the ropes and teaching other writer’s the ropes, and here he is, just sends it off, and poof, published!

My friend said, “He must have had a good teacher.” Wink wink, thinking I showed him? Ha! No Sue, I can’t take credit for that. His high school teacher can and his wonderful upbringing but I feel all I did was inspire him to WRITE.

When I met him ten years ago, he was wrapped up in his work as an Administrative Assistant for UPS and surfing the web but did he write? No, he never did. But as he was going blind, as you can imagine, his internet surfing was getting harder and harder and that is when I told him to maybe try a blog.

Reluctantly, I believe, he tried it. Little by little he wrote more and more and thus were born, Audio book Heaven, an audio book blog where he reviews audio books for the readers, and his Drums in the Deep blog where he tells of his life.

He was blind for three years of his writing his blogs and imagine his excitement when he had a chance to SEE them and reshape and format them the way he wanted and that what you see now, is the finished product. To this day he is still writing! He requests audio books from publishers and now, he doesn’t even need to request, they send them to him!

And on his Drums in the Deep blog, he’s had enough blessings and miracles in his life to keep him busy as an active writer. And now a PUBLISHED author! Way to go!!!

So now my advice is going to change for the entire up and coming community of writer’s. If any thing, HE has taught ME!

Just send it and forget it.

Keep it a secret that you’ve submitted (I don’t advocate keeping secrets because to me, that is a form of lying, but in this instance, when it comes to submitting your work, TELL NO ONE!)

Keep in mind, you might send a thousand words, and they are at liberty to chop your work to pieces. Steven’s was chopped from 803 words down to 250, but get this, he didn’t know it was $1 a word!!! And as you can imagine his surprise by the $250 dollar check he got in the mail!

I think the number one thing I learned was to market your work to a magazine that fits your story. Don’t submit a Children of the Corn Story to City Living. It won’t sell. Country Living was a perfect place for his story, THAT is why they took it.

He had received a letter that said he could order additional copies but it only said, “IF the submission qualified for payment, a check would be in the mail.” They never informed him IF it qualified but apparently it did. What qualified it? More than likely it was because it was an original story, not a reprint, or previously submitted work and it fit right in the magazine. Just a guess.

Either way, Congratulations Steven on becoming an officially PUBLISHED author/writer!!!

Word Count!

Exodus 12:49 One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.
***

I think it is so cute as newcomers come into the writing world. They throw caution to the wind, toss guidelines and rules out the window and just plain well do what they want to do.

Here is a gentle reminder to the discussion of WORD COUNT! It is essential in the writing world that we remember to show the word count. No publisher will even glance at your work if you forget to place the word count on the top of the page.

Imagine a publisher asking for 2000 words. He opens his/her email to find there is no word count. Do you know what happens to your submission? It gets TOSSED IN THE TRASH! All that hard work! All the anticipation, all the excitedness tossed in the bin. Why? Because NO WORD COUNT?

You might not think it is important but to a time honored profession, it is! I only push for it in all of my rooms for one reason, if you don't do it in your writing forums/classes/courses then you'll get lazy and not remember to place the word count in when the REAL submission time comes!!!

Also is is essential that you ADHERE to the guidelines. If the publisher, writing group, whatever, asks for a 500 word essay. It is downright rude, clumsy and unprofessional of you to write 1600 words. Sorry, I will not read it at all no matter how good of a writer you are. Not meaning to hurt your feelings in any way, but you didn’t follow the rules.

So please, (I see that some have mistakenly forgotten the word count, then remembered,)  that is fine in a writing course, unacceptable to an editor.  To be honest, before I even attempt to read 5000, 2000, 500 words, I need to see just how many words there are before I dive in! So remember the word count!

Someone said to me, “At least they’re writing, right?” Wrong! I am so happy to see writers writing but to be purposefully disrespectful to a guideline is wrong. Just plain wrong. If you’re taking a class on learning ‘How’ to write, and it takes you seven hundred words to write a paragraph, then look it over, revise it, shine it up and offer something of beauty to your peers. A 500 word guideline is set so you CAN write it right.

Be on your toes! Remember to always respect the guidelines, always double check before submitting and clicking that send button! This will get you in the habit and when submission time comes, you'll actually get your work read!

Submission

Submission Time is upon us...

Now that we’ve written the story, we’ve workshopped it with fellow writer’s (or revised it five times to make it perfect) and now we feel it is ready to submit!

First you will search out markets for your work. I would look specifically for where you think your piece of work is going to fit in. Don’t send a child’s story to an erotic magazine, and whatever you do don’t send a teen pregnancy story to a sports editor. In other words, DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

Most publications offer online guidelines for you to follow. It is of the utmost importance that you FOLLOW these guidelines right down to the line. Word for word, check what each one wants and expects from you, the writer.

If they accept 2,000 words, do not think that ONE WORD over the limit is allowed. It isn’t. Don’t surmise that it will look better in a fancy font. It won’t to their eyes! If they ask for 12 pt. Times New Roman , then by all means that is what you will deliver to them.

A lot of times they accept email submissions but in a rtf. format. Again, DO YOUR HOMEWORK and find out what a rtf. format IS. It is a Rich Text Format that makes the work of the editor much easier, and often times that is why they request your story in that format.

Sometimes they want your story in the body of an email, that is what they want, and that is what you will send them. If they want Snail Mail with a S.A.S.E (Self addressed stamped envelope) It is your job to deliver the goods in the form that they require.
You want them to read your work not toss it in the bin. If you fail to adhere to simple guidelines, maybe you aren’t ready to be a serious writer.

Now we’ve submitted, what’s next? Well my friend this is where you will need all the patience of a monk. This is where you wait. My advice? Forget you sent it in and when the acceptance comes in the mail (or rejection) you can say to yourself, "I forgot I even sent that story out!"

But we all know that you will have already made a file for where (and to whom) you’ve submitted and WHEN you’ve submitted. And more than likely you will look at it every day and wind up becoming a nail-biter before the "You’ve Got Mail" voice arrives with an acceptance or rejection.

Sit back, have a drink (preferably green tea) and wait…and wait…and wait some more!
Nooooooo, you start a NEW STORY! That’s what we writer’s do while we wait! Then we have submissions and works in progress going at all times so that we truly DO forget where and when and who and what we’ve sent out into the world. (I’m kidding)

Always have a record of your work! And don’t forget to BACK UP your files! You never know when the great power outage will sweep across America, and at least YOU will have a copy of all of your work!

Or…you can just BLOG!

Write on!

It is okay to be planted, but it is so much nicer when you bloom! ~joni