Doing the work

I've known for a long time that writers find solutions or answers to their writing problems by doing the work. By not stopping. I've shared this writing advice with my students and taken it when I've been stuck on a poem. If I don't stop writing, whatever problem I'm having is eventually resolved.

But I never thought this would be true for submissions.

I've been sending my first book to contests and presses for the past six months. Over Christmas Break, I began to get anxious. The university was on break so I had no schoolwork to keep me busy, so I started thinking about the presses I hadn't heard from yet, why I hadn't heard from them, and my close friends can attest to the fact that I got a little neurotic. Who wouldn't, but I was wondering when it would end.

It ended this morning.

You see, a week ago I had made a promise that I would not submit any work to magazines, journals, contests, or presses for an entire month. I needed a break from worrying about the response of editors and was sure that a break would help.

That was hogwash.

To be idle, for me, is to be anxious. This morning I prepared another copy of my manuscript to go out to a contest. Am I concerned about hearing a decision on my manuscript now? No, because I have it ready to go out. I have something to work toward, however small. I am doing the work of a writer.

And I am not going to stop doing this work. Why sit around and fret that the poems or the book aren't published yet? Why not be busy, be thinking toward something else? I have poems to revise, poems to send out, my manuscript to circulate. The real work is not in worrying or complaining, it is in doing.