House Arrest: Writing

In the midst of this mad lockdown I have done a fair bit of reading -- though, interestingly, not much more than usual. I think I have a natural limit with reading. I certainly can't do it all day (which I can playing music), and perhaps not even all evening, unless my mind is particularly clear. What I am doing more of is listening to music (and possibly playing a bit less), and I am watching films, which I usually seldom do; yet I'm not watching any television series, which I usually do.

I am perhaps writing less, but this has much to do with becoming fed up of receiving no responses for submissions to publications. I am beginning to realise that Samuel Johnson was quite right to say that no one but a blockhead ever wrote for anything but money. Writing an essay is not an inconsiderable labour. It is not like writing a blog post, which at the very most takes an hour (and this doubtless shows). An essay can take a day to write; and a serious essay about a subject, rather than a mere opinion piece, can take significantly longer -- weeks, months, even a year, depending on the difficulty of research.

Say you spend two weeks thinking about, researching and then writing an essay. You then finish it, and spend a few more days reflecting and making the odd adjustment. Then you start sending it to publications; how long this takes can vary greatly. I keep a list of publications that I like and which I know accept unsolicited submissions. This list is not long, maybe 30 publications in total. If I write something, I go over the list and submit the piece to those publications for which it might be suitable. Complications arise, however: some publications do not accept simultaneous submissions, meaning you have to wait for a response from them before you can submit the essay elsewhere. I have waited months for a response before; in many cases I am still waiting.

I have gone through this process maybe twenty, perhaps thirty times, and four times have I been successful. One time I was told my piece was being considered for publication, then several months later I got another email saying thank you, but no. Usually I get no response; and if I do get one, it tends to be a long time after submission. Sometimes, having months to reflect on an essay, I realise it wasn't as good as I first thought; then I am glad it was never published.

One time I submitted a short story to a publication under my real name, and was fairly swiftly rejected. Some time later I resubmitted the story to the same place under a pseudonym which implied me to be a woman from an ethnic minority background. It was swiftly published. I have only tried this once, so it is hardly evidence in and of itself, but I have heard of so many similar examples that I suspect there is a pattern. In fact, I have stopped submitting to literary and political publications unless they are explicitly not left-wing. It just doesn't seem worth the effort.

I haven't written much, then. I am thinking of writing a book. I might not be able to get it published, but I might nonetheless be able to self-publish it, and maybe a few curious people will read it.

I am constantly amazed that anyone seems to have a writing career. Then I read their writing and I am even more amazed. Of course I don't aspire to anything as daft as a writing career, or indeed any career for that matter. In this mad post-lockdown world, I can't honestly say I aspire to anything worldly. Certainly nothing ambitious.