STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, Part 7 by Max Jason Peterson

Delbert R. Gardner.
Photo by Adele Gardner

This series is dedicated to my loving father and mentor, Delbert R. Gardner, a beautifully lyrical and insightful poet and writer, who taught me how to submit my work when I was fourteen and gave me a postage allowance to do so at a time when we could ill afford it.

So far in this series, I’ve focused on using spreadsheets to track submissions as well as accomplishments. But I started using statistics to motivate me long before I switched to the spreadsheet format. If you find that spreadsheets are daunting, too much work, or just a greater level of detail than you need, this installment will share how I tracked my basic statistics in a word processing document.

While previous installments in this series do focus on spreadsheets, I hope that some of the advice about sticking with it and motivating oneself by the number of works sent out, rather than focusing on individual rejections, will still be helpful. 

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, Part 5 by Max Jason Peterson (aka Adele Gardner)

 Happy Father's Day, Delbo G.!

Delbert R. Gardner and Adele Gardner

Growing up, I had the time of my life sharing the writing path with my father, Delbert R. Gardner, a talented writer of poetry, fiction, humor, and essays, who during my lifetime worked variously as a professor of English literature who taught creative writing, and as a writer/editor for TRADOC who felt a special mission to improve training materials for the Army thanks to his experiences in World War II. I’m writing this on the eve of Father’s Day, so I just wanted to share how much it always went to me that Dad was my writing mentor, always encouraging me, providing feedback when I wanted it that was always on a level I could benefit from while growing up, just sharing the joy of the writing life together, and also showing me all the ropes with submissions. I started submitting my stories at fourteen and had my first poems published at sixteen thanks to Dad’s guidance. We were also writing pals—sharing writing sessions; offering one another encouragement; sending out manuscripts through the post every month; celebrating one another’s acceptances and tips about editors who might like each other’s work. (And now I’m his literary executor; and it’s in that capacity that I first began using statistics to track our submissions.) Since he helped me so much, and since I got such a lucky break having such a father (in terms of being a writer, naturally; but also, he was just simply an extraordinary Dad, so loving and wise, playing with us, sharing jokes, helping us with our homework and with life—our best friend) I feel strongly about passing on some of the things I learned thanks to Dad—things he taught me, and things I went on to find out as a direct result of his influence.

TREAT YOUR WRITING LIKE A BUSINESS by Guest Blogger Heather Weidner, Mystery Author

Writing was hobby for me for a long time. I dabbled when I had time, and I read every writing book that I could get my hands on. I did it for fun and without much thought as to what I would do with the end product once it was finished. I had no deadlines, and I could work on projects at my leisure.

When I decided I wanted to a published author, I realized that the process was a business and that I needed to treat it that way. That meant adding more organization, process, and structure.

Your Writing Schedule - I try to write or do something for my books every day. That could be plotting, editing, blogging, marketing, or growing my online following.

Life gets in the way sometimes. But you will see progress quickly if you set aside some time to work on your projects. When we moved to remote work during the plague, I did an experiment. I devoted my drive-time commute and my lunch hour to writing (almost 3 hours a day). I was amazed what I could accomplish in two years in three months. Figure out when you are most productive and write then if you can. I’m a morning person, so I love to get up before dawn when the world is quiet.