On Being vs. Being Seen

Although they are of equal length, January somehow felt longer than December. January always feels like the come-down month from the holiday season; the long, gentle runway back into our routines after the holiday hysteria that is December. In this dry, frigid month of reflection and reinvigoration, we also find ourselves in the wake of an election year, where nearly everyone's gaze is fixed, like the eye of Mordor, on the incoming administration. It makes sense: elections serve as a place to direct our hypervigilance, ennui, and vague sense of 'something's not quite right' every four years. (Making a mental note to myself to talk sometime about the interesting timing of our national elections with the holiday season/winter.) 

I know we were all starting to wonder if January would ever end, but the long month at least gave me an opportunity to slip a blog post in more or less in time to make my monthly posting goal. Although it's been a significant month in the war on Gaza and organizations that receive federal funding are generally in a panic right now, two things I feel personally motivated to put my time and energy towards are: work in my local chapter of DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) and writing. Perhaps I'll write about DSA in the future as there's a lot of juicy stuff to talk about there, but, in the meantime, I feel long overdue in sharing my reflections on a topic that's been near and dear to my heart for as long as I can remember: getting published. 

I'm usually against sharing motivational quotes about art and feminism (they're generally saccharine and myopic) but I felt genuinely motivated reading an Ursula Le Guin quote about being a woman writer that people were sharing around her death day (January 22nd). It sucks to see her dragged into the predictable Handmaid's Tale social justice warrior upswell around a presidential inauguration but I recognize that the timing of her death was out of her control. It's unfortunate that she couldn't have held on a little longer and passed away in a different month but it is what it is. As a pioneer in science fiction and fantasy who pushed the bounds of those genres, she probably would have been dragged into the liberal virtue-signaling frenzy regardless of when she died. It's part of the deal of being famous or being dead: you relinquish control. 

My support for aspiring creatives definitely isn't gender-specific. On the contrary, I'm inspired to hear about anyone's creative journey. Reading this quote though, I imagined Le Guin speaking directly to me as a woman trying to get published in a genre that is often cited as being one of the most male-dominated in the industry: science-fiction. Despite the cringe-y context in which I came across it on social media and the metaphor about being a volcano, which starts to toe the line for me, I saw this quote at a time when I needed a little push to continue my publishing journey for a short story I've been working on. 

Given my renewed efforts to publish my story, I want to talk this month about how publishing both anonymously and with my name attached to things have worked in different ways to fuel my creative drive and how I see the value in each mode of output. 

Since the age of twelve, my dearest ambition has been to publish and to fully lean into my identity as a capital W Writer. I love the idea of having my name attached to something honest that I've taken great pains to create, something that feels like a part of myself I am giving to the world, something wholly "mine", whatever that means. It feels more meaningful to me than having a child. At the same time, I've been putting my writing out there on anonymous blogs since high school. I have published and shown people my creative work a little - articles, poetry, movies, singing - but the majority of my creative journey has either been private or taken place on personal blogs which I don't advertise to anyone or use a pen name on. Although some of this instinct could be chalked up to an ingrained sense of unworthiness I struggle with, I've come to appreciate anonymity in art as a profound exercise that I believe can change your relationship with your creation for the better. 

First and foremost, publishing anonymously has helped me with my perfectionism, a very serious affliction for many creatives. A good friend reflected that you can never be completely honest until everyone you know is dead. Even if your art isn't overtly confessional or easily traced back to your life events, it's incredibly vulnerable and intimidating putting something out there with your name on it for everyone to judge. Writing is vulnerable. Like horcruxes, we put pieces of ourselves in different elements/characters in our art. I used to imagine everything I wrote through the lens of an invisible audience and that's been really stifling to my ability to be honest. Anonymity gives you the freedom to express yourself or to even relegate certain creative projects to different personas of yours, allowing you to explore different facets of yourself. Making art is one of the most soul-seeking processes I can think of. 

Ok, cool, sounds like you're really enlightened and have transcended the need for external validation. Yay you. But what if you put something out there that's really meaningful that you want feedback on? How do you get feedback if people don't know where to give that feedback? Depending on the medium, it might be a little harder to elicit or witness people's reactions, but you might also get a more genuine reaction without having your name attached to it, because people aren't as afraid of hurting your feelings. Getting honest feedback is more important to me with some projects than it is with others. 

We see this general shift towards anonymity in all of our communication spaces: an anonymity/uniformity placed on us as just a number in the queue and as a protective measure we can take to protect ourselves. Using aliases/giving false information doesn't always just serve a need to protect our identities though. In not attaching ourselves to our words/content, we give ourselves the opportunity to see an idea stand on its own without getting bogged down by our identity. The idea doesn't need an ambassador; it's enough to know that someone out there was able to express that thought or feeling. For me, I just like the freedom of posting anonymously. Ironically, it feels more mine when it's anonymous, like I can come back to it whenever I want and change it as I change. Call this a lack of commitment, but I think there's something beautiful about art being able to change with you over time; letting art "live" rather than freezing it in time feels like a more accurate representation of the life it reflects. 

I say all this but I've lately been feeling compelled to revisit my old dream of publishing for several reasons. For one, I want to use that pressure of performance and commitment as a force to propel this certain project off of its dusty old shelf once and for all. Rarely have I felt that need to cast something away from me so aggressively; I think it's a mix of needing closure and feeling like I'll be carrying around the dead weight of a stillborn idea if I don't show this thing the light of day. When it comes to publishing my story, I don't know whether to use the metaphor of giving birth, demonic exorcism or shoving it into the unknown like a Viking funeral boat. I am mother, mourner and spiritual facilitator all at once. 

Publishing is also an exercise in discipline and that resonates with where I'm at in my life right now. I like treating something like a serious endeavor that demands you to show up whether you want to or not. I love a good long journey towards something that's really meaningful and challenging to attain. In the decade or so that I've been working on a single sci-fi short story, that piece has seen over a hundred drafts and has changed drastically in that time. No, it'll never be done, but I feel a sense of pride in what I've learned about writing and myself in that time. It's a space that I've used as a parking lot for my ideas over the years; a place where I've been able to test, explore and grow. Although there's a part of me that doesn't want to give that space up, this feels like the only way to transcend it and grow in new directions as a writer. 

I think the theme of this story within a story is that creation is doubly painful - both in the act itself and in sharing it with others. We build walls around our most intimate thoughts out of a need to reserve at least one space that is for us and us alone, a space that we enjoy having a private understanding of. That need stems from an innate loneliness we all cling to, that even the most extroverted person can access if they really want. I tell myself that sharing something intimate isn't about trying to find people who can understand or relate to my experience but as a way to share something of myself with the world and enter a conversation with others undergoing the painful act of creation. 

A few months ago the idea of sharing my journey to publication - wherever I happened to be in it at the time of sharing - began percolating. I think other creatives in the same Viking funeral boat might benefit from hearing my reflections at this juncture. I see merits to keeping your work anonymous but to the people out there who are sitting on the idea of publishing because it feels inaccessible, daunting or even impossible, I say that it is doable and you don't have to be perfect. You just have to keep trying to find the right place for your work. This is, incidentally, the biggest thing I've realized throughout this journey: yes, seek feedback, edit and put your best foot forward but it also just takes a lot of time and patience to find the right place for your story. If a publication rejects it, that means that it wasn't the right place for it. 

BIG DISCLAIMER: I have not published my story yet, but I still want to offer advice on navigating the world of getting published, as I've been at it a while, have had success with previous projects, and have received a lot of really great advice in the time that I've been trying to publish it. 

My first publication (an article for a literary research journal) took years, luck, networking and lots of meticulous editing. I happened upon a story and had academic advisors who helped connect me to the right people and hone my skills as a researcher. When I first started that project, the thought of publishing hadn't even crossed my mind. I think that's why it's important to have someone tell you at some point that publishing is even an option. 

In trying to publish "speculative fiction", as sci-fi is sometimes called, with no prior publications like this, I started by asking myself the following questions: 

1. What medium do I want to see my work published in? (Online, print, free to read, in an anthology?) 
2. Do I want to be able to hold it in my hands? 
3. Do I need someone else to publish it or will self-publishing be satisfactory? (Still not ruling this option out for my piece. My dad has used Lulu Press to self-publish really cool, high-quality books. Obviously, pricing varies depending on what you're trying to print but the service itself is free - you just pay for printing and mailing.) 
4. Am I ready to buckle in for the long haul? 

While some places get back to you quickly, a 3-6 month turn-around for a piece is pretty standard in the publishing world. It can take up to a year or even years, if you hear back at all. With a lot of places, you'll be lucky to even receive a rejection. Know your worth. If a place doesn't accept your work, it just means it didn't fit their particular vibe (which you should definitely research beforehand). They'll usually be pretty explicit about what they're looking for in their submission guidelines. I've received feedback from only one place so far and it was only about the parts they liked, so you shouldn't expect to use the submissions process as a space in which to receive constructive feedback. That's what friends/writer's groups are for. More practically: 

1. Make a free account on Submittable.com or another submissions database. You can sort by criteria like: currently open for submissions, fee*, pay, themed calls, genre....etc. Even reading through the submission criteria of a few magazines will help you get a sense of what you're looking for and what the demand is. Part of your research. 
2. Google/ask around for lists like these of places to submit to. Include the search term "first-time submissions." The databases have compiled a lot of publications but won't tell you which are more prestigious or niche. That's separate research you'll have to do. 
3. You will see almost all publications say that they don't accept simultaneous submissions. It's generally fine to ignore that, just let them know as soon as you do if you get accepted somewhere else.

*There are so many free places to submit your work that I would generally recommend against places with a fee. I have entered a few contests and will only pay a fee (no more than $15) once every few months. 

Even if you're the least sensitive person when it comes to rejections, it still sucks to (regularly) receive them. I'll sometimes abandon the publishing project for months at a time. I always end up coming back though, because I do have a story to tell and it's the most important story a person can tell: their own, however heavily veiled in metaphor and allegory. I'll let you know how my journey goes and post a part 2 if I ever get a contract~*~