For the last month or so I have been editing and re-writing a story I had written last month. I wrote it with the intention of submitting it for publication.  Tonight I finished my last re-write. I went to the publication’s website to review the submission requirements once more. It turns out it was a very good thing I did.

The first thing I discovered was what the pay for a published story is ($0.04 per word for new authors).  The second thing I discovered is that most first time submissions should be under 5000 words (mine is just under 10,000) and that chapter stories are rarely accepted for first time authors (mine most likely falls into that category). After those two discoveries I went on to the style requirements.  I read through them and discovered I had made some errors that didn’t conform to their formatting.

Damn.  I was so excited about this piece that I somehow missed all of the above mentioned details.

At first I was a bit crestfallen.  My goal of getting published became far away once more. I have been trying to write a story for this publication for years but I never could get one done.  This story erupted from within me. It flowed onto the screen in a hurry and it felt so good.  To see my dream shatter so abruptly was physically painful.

I stared at the screen for a minute, unsure how to proceed or if I even should. I looked on my screen, the words of my story floating before me, and said, “to hell with it.”

I have started making all of the style corrections that are required and once that has been done I will do one more read through before I send in mu submission.  The goal is to send it on its way by the end of the day Thursday.  I may have too many words and I may have chapters, but I wrote a damn good story.  If they reject it because of those reasons then I will try again with a smaller piece and I will nail it.  Then I will resubmit this story as an established author.

So my friends, my advice to you is this: read all of the submission and style requirements FIRST.

Good luck and take the wiser road.

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