Sometimes survival seems like submitting. And that's really hard on the spirit.
Rewriting is a large part of the whole job. And get rid of stuff that's not working. Just pare it down until it's a beautiful thing you can hand in, probably late, to your editor.
When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.
Surrender had played out for good with me.
What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be.
Every role is a new form of surrender.
It is important to send your work to as many publishers as possible. For every one publisher who may show interest in your work, there will be at least five who will reject you.
I started to send my work to journals when I was 26, which was just a question of when I got the courage up. They were mostly journals I had been reading for the previous six or seven years.
After you've written a story, the thing to do is sell it. Sounds simple, and it is, if one will follow certain basic principles of salesmanship.
I don't enter, I'm entered. It's up to someone else. It's up to them.
