The power of embracing process

You are reviewing the information for a poetry press, publisher or literary magazine, and you see the submission criteria. 

You want to show initiative so you check Linked In to find out who the editing team are. You look at a few previously published pieces, to get a flavour of their acceptance criteria. 

Then you go for it! 

A few days later, you receive a quick response to say you have not been accepted. 

It is a disheartening experience. We place our world into our work. Often, your piece could be reflective of a particularly difficult time in your life. It could be a testimony to your renewed sense of your well-being. It could equally be a beautiful poem about your favourite coat. 

However, it still received a negative response. 

Or did it? 

I have worked at both sides of the table as a theatre director, producer and creative group leader. 

- I have been the artist hoping to receive feedback from an organization, with strong credentials and significant sway. 

- I have also been the producer sat up until 2am sifting through applications. I have even sent rejection emails after an important date with a long-term boyfriend leaving him to hang out by himself. He didn't love me for that, but every day the actors waited... 

Well, we know how that feels...

Creative enterprise rarely ever stops. It only ever mounts. 

Editors, printmakers, directors, producers and agents are people. They are incredibly enthusiastic people who often fight perpetual exhaustion. This is not a plea for compassion but a grounded reality that has become my reality. 

Once, one has been behind the table it becomes easier to recognise certain rules and regulations.

Submission criteria do not exist to merely regulate the work that comes to an editor, but also to allow them to keep their product consistent. It expedites organisation, and response times and allows slack time for them to return to their family responsibilities.

Often a publication will be funded under certain remits. In this day of crowdfunded, kick-started publically owned creative teams, the investors may be people at any level of society. 

From local magazines that exploded into international juggernauts to the TikTok reviewer who now works for Rotten Tomatoes. Creatives are trying to respond in the most responsible way they can.

Your work deserves audience

Your voice deserves space and time to develop

However, with that comes responsibility

Praxis, such as, professional conduct, systematic planning and criticism are all part of the beast. They make a creative into a confident artist. They make people into household names.  

I actively admit, I'm a significantly better performance poet than I am a literary one. However, I have enjoyed the chance to be critiqued, challenged and be rejected. I truly do not think I would be in the circumstances, I am if those situations never happened.

I would lack the resilience... 

I have had the honour of being part of the editing team for Wheelsong Poetry Anthology 3. It has been a brilliant process. 

Your work has moved me. It has surprised me. It has heartened me and sometimes actively challenged me. Within sitting on the board I have learnt how much work it takes to edit an anthology and I believe more than ever praxis is necessary. 

Without it so much less work would be seen or responded to. 

Read the submission criteria for as many publications as you can. Use it as a learning experience for knocking on the door of future publishers. So many of the rules repeat and many of the expectations have valuable reasons. At worst, you will have learnt a new skill. At best, you are quids in. 

Genevieve Ray