I have never submitted anything for publication. Mostly this is because I generally write fanfiction which, by its very nature, is unpublishable, but its also because I always assumed my original writing wasn’t ready yet. (this despite the fact that I have more than once wanted to go through a book with an editing pen and clean up the writing)

Anyway, I took a writing class back in October when my working life was intensely crappy and I decided to see if there was any possible way that I could theoretically make a living writing romance novels. I then proceeded to instead write a kind of stylized espionage genre story instead. Read some in class one day, the response was terrific, and the teacher told me to start submitting.

I bought a copy of Writer’s Market months ago intending to do just that, and then stuck it in a box when work and other stuff kept me from doing any writing whatsoever, let alone finishing the story I started back then. Picked it up again last night and skimmed through it looking for appropriate lit magazines to submit to. There aren’t very many. Most literary magazines, it seems, and even the general interest magazines all want modern lit. The higher-brow stuff. The ones that cater towards genre are usually for fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, maybe romance.

Me? I decided to write in the genre that’s published in about six publications, mostly online, mostly with offbeat names like Toasted Cheese (I can just hear that conversation with my mother now: “Hey, Mom! I’ve been published!” “Where? Esquire? Atlantic Monthly?” “Um. It’s an online journal. Called Toasted Cheese.” “….”).  I’m kind of disappointed that the pickings are so slim.

That doesn’t mean I won’t submit it.  I can send it to all of them pretty easily now is all.   Also, I still I have to rewrite it before it’s going anywhere.