This summer I took a writing workshop at the Delta Township District Library. The instructor was really good and afterwards he reached out to the class and offered his services as a writing coach.
Well, I decided to take him up on it and worked with him for about three months on a spiritual memoir about my first couple of years in Islam. When we first started out, I told him I was just looking for a really strong blog post. After reading the first draft, he said he thought that with work it was publishable. That was very encouraging and I decided to go for it. I’ve published professionally but never creatively.
It was a lot of fun to write the essay and really challenged me. I worked on it and worked on it and worked on it and then I worked on polishing it. The piece – about 7,000 words or 20 double-spaced pages – is not perfect, but I am satisfied that it’s the best I can do at this point. It’s revealing, it gives a glimpse into Islamic community life for those who are unfamiliar with it, the story has some interesting complications, and it’s all about my favorite topic of late: religion.
The coach provided me with this super helpful spreadsheet of print (yeah, they’re still out there) literary magazines and their requirements. I found 16 that my essay meshed with and submitted it. That’s me reaching for the stars and putting on my fancy pants.
After 10 days I got my first rejection. They were really nice about it! 1 down, 15 to go
The only upside to being rejected by print publications is that it leaves online journals who don’t have the same space limitations and that I can link to on this blog (and in Christmas letters!). Plus! There’s always this blog. I would like to share it here eventually.
Oh, and by the way, none of these places pay. Like, anything. And they’re the fancy pants places. Welcome to the world of publishing.
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