The Hardness of Writing

Not having much luck at the moment.

One story in particular is proving 'hard to place' and I really don't understand why as it is set in a colourful location (Mexico City), and, imo, it's better written than many of my others which have been accepted.  The last ezine rejected it same day, the day before Christmas Eve. I don't think she liked it much.  The temptation is to lob it straight back out again, just to have it 'subbed', out there in cyberspace, but my more boring, sober, self tells me to look at it again beforehand.  Hey ho, dear Reader, ho hum.

I have also been reading Mslexia (British printed magazine for women who write), where I once had a competition success.  Why should that make you depressed, you might ask.  Last August, I entered their 'Motherhood' competition, which was for a piece (of fiction, non-fiction or poetry) not exceeding 2200 words.  Dear Reader, I gave it my best shot, editing and re-editing and tweaking.  I knew it wasn't perfect but I did think I had got an unusual angle and a strong and distinctive mc. I didn't expect to win, but I felt I'd made a respectable attempt.  Then I read the winners in Mslexia Dec/Jan/Feb.  What a revelation, Dear Reader.  What a revelation.  Am I going to whinge, say the judges got it mistaken or are biased, or that they wrongfully passed over my little effort?  Nope.  Nope.  Nope. 

What depresses me is not that the winning entries were so much better than mine - good luck to them.  They produced some interesting, funny and emotive writing, some so moving that I could hardly bear to read them.  (Squeamish, me.)  What depresses me is how pathetic mine was in comparison and how much more I have to learn. 

The more I write, the harder it gets.  When I used to write for myself and show virtually nobody, I thought I was quite good at it.  When I joined a couple of online writing communities over 4 years ago, other members told me (some of) the areas where I fell short.  They were too tactful to point out all my faults at once, so they're still doing it.  Their comments have also enabled me to see weaknesses in my writing for myself in glorious technicolour.  If I look at my work objectively, I believe I must be producing a higher standard of work than I was 4 years ago, but at the moment it doesn't feel like it.  I know I have a very long way to go.

Things I Should've Known Years Ago...

I've just had a long Eureka moment, lasting for several days.  It's rather embarrassing actually because I've found out something I should've known ages ago.

I've been subbing for about two years and I've been moderately successful, using Duotrope to find ezines to sub to, largely American ones, which take stories featuring very American subject-matter.  I know several British writers who write very specifically for this market, even using Webster spellings.  No one is a bigger fan of Duotrope than I am, but it does tend to represent what American writers want to write - scifi, fantasy, zombies, vampires. 

At the same time... well, over the last few months... I've become a bit of a writing mag junkie ('Writers Forum', 'Mslexia', 'Writers Monthly', 'Leaf Books' although I was just reading the articles - until the last few days.   Dear Reader (if there is one), I have come to love the classifieds at the end, you know, the ones where they list all the competitions.  They're all British and most of them are open genre, so I've been whacking my British-based mainstream stories in there.  It may be that they too favour scifi and fantasy etc and I'm going to be terribly disappointed, but they're not saying so.