Pondering Literary Magazine Submissions

I'm not sure where this week went or what I've actually accomplished, so might list it here to get this started as I've come to my blog with a huge blank. I only worked one day, but I secured teaching work for several sessions dotted over the next few weeks, even added a new school to my list. I got my computer back which seems like a huge deal, so I had to spend time sorting that, transferring files, finding things I couldn't do when it was away. 

Writing-wise, I finished a poem I was trying to write for the Book of Kells writing and art competition, the deadline is 30/10. This makes me wonder if I should have links to calls for submissions, etc on this blog, but that requires a lot of research, so probably won't happen. I did enjoy researching the Book of Kells and its art and got a poem out of it, so that was a bit of fun work. 

I also submitted a bunch of poems to magazines I've been trying to get in for donkeys' years, as they say in Scotland. Solid UK magazines like Envoi, Acumen, Agenda that I've been sending poems to since the late 90s. It's frustrating, but I always maintain there's hope that someday I will write a poem or two they like. But I have to admit, I do submit to them much less often than I did in the early days, partially because that sense of hope is small, but also because there are so many more magazines to submit to now. I've gotten over my fear of internet magazines and submit to them as much as I do print journals though I do like print publication more, holding an issue in my hands, over seeing it on a screen. 

I'd be interested to see what the rise of internet publishing opportunities has done to the subscription and submission rates of these long-standing print magazines. There are a few that still refuse to take electronic submissions, only posted ones, which frankly because of the costs of posting from Finland I can no longer submit to even though I'd like to be published by them. 

That will have dropped their submission rates a bit, I'm sure, but from having worked for a literary magazine, reading submissions, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I constantly get rejection letters saying 'we received over 500 submission for this issue, but could only accept 50 authors'. Weeding that down through charging for electronic submissions as one magazine I used to submit to started doing or by accepting only posted submissions will mean it's only the die-hards, who have money to spare, who love the magazine and still hold them in high regard in this faster paced modern publishing culture or those who know they have a good chance to be published through previous publications or connections will still submit. Am I a cynic? Probably, but I'm probably not far wrong. 

This year I've submitted to over twice as many magazines than previous years and this has mostly to do with the increase in online journals. They often have a higher accept rate, due to publishing more often for less money and often have a quicker turn around time. 

I don't know how much being published in online magazines is helping me, but it's all I can do in my current position. Some days I'm not sure if any of this is worth it, some days I feel I can conquer the world with just the right break. Most days I just keep ploughing on. 

Sodden Catch-Up

I'm not sure where the week has gone. I have managed to get some writing done, but with my computer in the shop and learning to use my son's with Google Docs instead of Word which is so, so slow and having the kids around half the week, I've not done as much as I would have liked. But I've written a few poems, submitted to a few mags, had three poems accepted by a magazine and an anthology. So a good week from that perspective.

It's rained most of the week, so even with the beautiful colours going on just now, it hasn't been a get outdoors type of week, though we've picked a lot of apples, have been eating lots of apple crumble and I got most of my garden jobs done. I spent some time sorting and cleaning out the kids' stuff, their over-flowing baskets, drawers and boxes and I painted a few things that have needed it for months or years. 

None of which really have much to do with writing, but it was a week for gathering and tidying, doing the little jobs that I don't have time for while working and doing the rounds of hobbies and appointments. For sitting still and writing, for reading curled on the couch. So hopefully I can go into next week with a slightly clearer mind and a bit more energy for the long, dark slog to the winter holidays. 

I had a poem published on the Caithness Broch Project's website. They had a call for artists to submit work on brochs for an upcoming exhibition. The call wasn't clear exactly what they were looking for, but I had just written a poem based around the double defensive wall of a broch, so I submitted it. As I mentioned previously, this 'don't ask, don't get' type of submission has gotten me residencies before, so I thought I'd risk assuming that a writer is an artist too. 

They sent a receipt for my submission, but didn't mention the call was for an art auction to raise money for the project. You can't really auction a poem, especially when it's just print on white, but the organiser offered to put the poem up on the website anyway which is really nice. So please go and check out their auction, maybe bid on something. There's about seven days left. The ones I'd like are all out of my price range already, but my previous bid counts towards what they earned, so I feel a bit better. I might still put in a last minute bid, just the same. 

One more day to enjoy the autumn holiday, hopefully it'll stop raining tomorrow. 

Half-Term Wallow

I'm still struggling with the transition to working while being a writer, but I've had a good week of work and some small chunks of time to write. I've also had a weird twist that may make things even more interesting, but I'm holding judgement until I see what the results are.

Autumn is in full swing in Finland. I do like that we have four distinct seasons here, even if three of them are very, very short. I've always considered autumn my new year, Samhain, my birthday, the desire to get things done before I want to hibernate through winter, so I'm in a contemplative, taking stock mood. It's also our half-term holiday this next week, so it's my time to catch up on things that have been sliding while I'm settling into a new routine.

I was out this morning picking up windfall apples. I still need to get the kids into the last tree to pick the hanging ones. I'll spend this week ignoring my phone as I'm not waiting on work calls, cleaning up the garden, cooking the apples, putting away the trampoline and summer furniture, sleeping and writing as much as I can.

This weekend I've tried to catch up on some of the prompts I didn't finish in my last course. This morning I stared out the window and wrote a poem based on what I saw, one of the prompts I regularly suggest to my students. I'm mulling over a prompt on conkers I've had in my head for the past two weeks, lots of images but nothing to tie them together yet. And I'm sure there's a poem stuck to the burr that came back inside with me today. 

I will wallow in autumn, in autumn writing full of spice and warmth, damp and earthy. 

See you on the other side. 

Paid or Unpaid, Can it Even Be a Question?

I mentioned last week I gave up on an opportunity to take an unpaid internship but decided to write an unpaid blog post instead. I thought I'd look more into unpaid work and how I balance my decisions.

After years off for raising kids, I've had to go back to work. Not that I haven't been working in the time before this. Putting aside the years of caring for my four kids, coping with my son's special needs and all the extra appointments and stresses connected with that and the one editing client I've kept on, I've been a writer. I've been writing two novels, finishing two poetry collections and working on building a publishing record as a poet.

I've maybe been paid twenty-five euros in the past five years from a magazine that accepted a poem. I've won one award, but have yet to see the prize or any profit from it. Untold hours of writing, editing, compiling, researching and sending out submissions, writing up applications for grants and competitions. And I have nothing financially to show for it. 

Outside of hobbies, I can't imagine many things where we would accept that, except for the creative arts. Bands are often expected to do gigs for free to gain exposure, editors often go unpaid at small journals, writers and musicians do unpaid events to punt their books or albums.There has to be true devotion to one's art if you want to follow this route.

So when I was thinking of how I was going to go back to work, being a writer was pretty far down my list of possible careers. While I will always write and will continue to try and get my work published, I cannot support myself much less my children with this sort of writer job. 

Most writers need day jobs. The UK's Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society surveyed 50,000 writers last year to discover on average a writer will earn around £10,000 a year from their writing. This was overshadowed by the fact that their average mean household earning was nearer £80,000. This means that writers either take on another non-writing job, or they have a second individual in the house who earns the difference from a non-writing career. 

So I've had to consider other paths. The Content Writer internship seemed a possibility, but balancing six months of unpaid work, writing at least 3 articles a week, while trying to earn money now didn't seem realistic, especially when research into the company seemed to show that moving into paid roles within their framework was unlikely and it wasn't a job I was particularly interested in. So I chose the part-time job as a substitute teacher that, while currently not a reliable cash-flow, had the most potential with some future training to becoming a solid job. I am also taking on editing clients, though there are a lot of English editors in Finland looking for the same. 

But I still want to be a writer and will need to put in unpaid work towards my goal, in terms of writing time, but I also want to increase my exposure. I probably will not be published much here in Finland, so I need to have a presence online to find a publisher in the UK. So writing a one-off unpaid blog article connected to writing seemed a sensible choice. And I'll continue to look at some other blog-type work, some maybe that will even pay. 

As much as I like this casual format of blogs, it's not the type of writing I really enjoy. I want to be a poet, maybe a novelist, but that goal becomes more difficult when I have to do 'real work'. I've maybe written two draft poems this week because the flu season has started and I'm getting more subbing work. I'm scribbling in the staff room on my breaks, but it's hard to focus as it's a chatty, busy place and I haven't found a routine there yet. As a substitute, I don't have a routine. I rarely know what I'm doing each day until I'm thrown in the deep end. 

This is my current normal. I really enjoyed the daily prompts and writing time, but I can't maintain that anymore. I've had two days off this week and they've been filled with doctor's appointments because flu season and catching up with admin and other things-to-do. I can't spend all my hours doing unpaid writing work, I will have to cherry pick what I do with my time, write when I can.

It's a shame how much writers are expected to do for free, but it is a trickle down affect. Small arts events, literary magazines and small publishers struggle to get funding, so cannot pay the writers who work for them a decent rate, if they can pay at all. Bigger publishers, large arts festivals, universities with creative writing departments have more money, but get it by using big name writers, so the pool of writers earning more than average money from writing is quite small and the competition for the small paying jobs and publishing spots is fierce. It's a depressing circle and rules out really ever making proper money as a writer without having a safety net of other income.

I, of course, don't write to make money, but it would be nice to be able to work and earn in my chosen field. If I want to continue, I will have to take on unpaid work, spend time on keeping up a presence as well as writing. I will keep on writing. 

Roller Coastering

It should be a verb, shouldn't it? It's been one of those weeks where I feel like I'm going to be sick from the ups and downs of my new work career.

Last Tuesday I had a Skype interview for an internship for a start-up social media company. It was for a position as a Content Writer, writing articles about travel and expat life, two things I am interested in. I was offered the post, but in the end turned it down because a) I wasn't happy working for 6 months for no pay, especially after I read a review of the company that suggested that they only took on a stream of unpaid interns rather than paid staff and b) I didn't enjoy the technology side enough to really want to use up time I could be getting other work churning out articles that used less of my writing skills and more of my ability to link to other sites. It may be a choice I regret, but I feel like I've been true to who I want to be.

A nice affirmation that I've maybe made the right decsion for me was that on the same day I turned down the offer an editor rejected some poems I had sent in for their online journal, but suggested, having seen my link to this page, that I might like to write a guest blog instead. Unpaid again, there's a blog post in the future about working for free, but it's a single article on a subject I'm more interested in and in a style that's more comfortable to me. Details to follow when the blog goes live.

I've also been working for my first editing client here in Finland. So hopefully things are going more in the direction I prefer. Small steps.

As a break from the less creative work, I've decided to take some of the extra poems I have rattling about and create another collection. My Scottish and Finnish books are still sitting at various publishers and could be for ages yet and I felt like I was missing out on good opportunities that were floating by. This collection moves beyond culture and place and looks more at the individual's attempts to come to define themselves as they come to terms with their struggles.

I find something really satisfying and almost meditative about putting together a collection, sorting through poems to find ones that fit my theme, figuring out an order, editing and then trying to write a synopsis to bring the whole idea together. I love carrying the rough draft manuscript around, editing each poem and shuffling through the pages. Holding close the warm knowledge that I made this, each word knitted together as a poem and then each poem layered to make a book. Hopefully they build upon each other to create a strong whole. The chance that it will get accepted is slim, but I enjoy the process in a different way to writing. 

It's good to have a break from the slog of reality with something you love. 

Juggling it All

Where has this week gone? After the interest I'd received last week in my job hunting, I was offered two days of substitute teaching early this week and it offered insight to what working full-time will do to my writing life. 

No slow starts with tea at the kitchen table, using social media to ease myself awake before writing and editing through the morning. Instead, it was snatching handfuls of time for first drafts in the staff break room or at 9pm after I finally got all the kids to bed. It was ignoring writing on my first day off so I could take my son to the doctor, make a proper dinner for that evening, do the shopping and the laundry, catch up on admin and things for the kids. 

It wasn't until Thursday I actually had a morning to write. It made the writing I accomplished that day a tiny bit sweeter. I had worked hard, earned a small pay check, earned the time to commit to my calling. Amidst the exhaustion, there was a sense of accomplishment, I can work and single parent and write. Maybe not to the extent I would prefer on all sides, but it is possible, messy, tiring, but possible.

Fittingly, there's been a trend on Twitter at the moment, maybe it circles around regularly, but I'm a newbie remember, of writers posting about procrastination, how they are not writing. Is it guilt that makes these writers post this type of self-depreciating post, to shame themselves into writing? Or is it to gain commiseration or likes because we all get distracted by research rabbit holes or social twitterings sometimes? Both probably.

It's good to know we all have moments like this, but I want to use this week as a warning to myself that I won't always have time to do everything else but writing. I won't feel guilt or punish myself for putting other things first; kids, work, daily life-upkeep will have to be sorted first most days, but I need to make the use of the time I do have and write when I can. 

My house is a state, but I've managed to start four poems, two I like, this week, so I think I'm winning. 

#amwriting

Changing Hats

This week has been more positive on the job-seeking front. I've had an interview with an international school for substitute work, I've had an offer to chat about teaching English to nursery school kids and I've been offered an interview for an intern role for writing social media travel articles. All interesting in their own ways, all leading in different directions and all not quite substantial enough to support my family.

I'm not quite sure which way to jump. I've turned down the nursery school English teacher job because it wouldn't allow me to take on substitute teaching work for several days a week for only three hours of confirmed work at the moment and the pay was rather miserable. I'll do the interview with the intern roll, but I'm very reluctant to spend too much time on it as it's unpaid, I have a feeling it won't lead me anywhere in the company and I'm worried it's just free labour without much in it for me.

I wrote an article to apply for the social media internship. It's basically what I've been doing for my other blog, giving advice about things to do in a kind of travel guide format. I enjoyed the writing to a deadline, buzzing as I typed into the wee hours, feeling like a proper journalist, but then learning the format the website required, creating links to other sites, finding stock photos and embedding maps was a right palaver and took up most of my time. I do most of that for my own blog, but it just seemed a lot of hassle when it's not for my benefit. I'm more suited to words than social, I think, but we'll see where this goes.

Back to poetry, I've gotten back into a routine of writing a rough draft of a poem daily in between job searches, attending interviews and writing the article. While I need to financially and want to mentally get back to the real working world, I know I will miss my mornings at the kitchen table scribbling in my notebook and then typing away on the laptop. I need a full-time writing job. Me and lots of other writers. 

I've seen lots of posts on Twitter where writers offer their editing services because they're despearate for work that they'll enjoy and will fit into a writer's life. I'm sure there are a bunch of other writers like myself who see these posts and think 'you and me both, mate'. I've gotten rejections from all the editing companies I've sent CVs to, of course.

So now, I'm waiting for that last minute, 'can you come in and teach today' text while I shuffle the kids off to school and trying to learn how to be a social media content writer, I think that's the term. And looking for other work opportunities. 

I've hit over 100 rejections from magazines and journals this week, the first time I've managed it. It shows in my acceptance rate as well, I've had double the amount of poems published and accepted so far this year, including my pamphlet collection which I'm pretty proud of. I've also written a lot more poems, so I have more to submit which helps. 

So I'm off to enjoy the last of my weekend, to try and write a poem and check out the job sites. The fun never ends.