Writing power outages

Poets and writers encounter down times in their writing for a variety of reasons, ranging from power outages to phone interruptions to feeling uninspired. Every time you get a new computer or upgrade software, you probably experience down times, too, as it takes time to save time working in and through electronic equipment that may be new to you.

Regardless of the reasons for the power outages in your writing life, those downtimes can bring uptimes for placing your fiction, nonfiction, children’s stories, devotionals, Bible studies, church curriculum, and poetry with journals, e-zines, book publishers, or your church’s denominational publishing headquarters. To do this:

Study book catalogs and back issues of periodicals and magazines you subscribed to, got at church, or bought from a newsstand.

Notice the topics, tone, style, and length of the manuscripts published in your genre.

In a word processing file, list every publisher who publishes work similar to yours. Add info about their editorial requirements and contact information. Or make a 3x5 file card filed alphabetically for each publishing company you like.

If your power loss does not include an electrical outage or lost hard drive, research literary journals, book publishers, church publishing headquarters, and e-zines on the Internet.

How?

Study publishing companies as you browse through titles in online bookstores such as Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, and the shopping pages offered by the publishers themselves.

Check out literary journals and e-zines readily found on the Internet.

You’ll find new publishing possibilities through social networks too.

When inspiration returns you to writing again, you’ll be ready to plug in your powerful words to the publishing markets you found during downtimes that cause upturns in your publishing credits or book sales.

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© 2012, Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved.

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