Jennifer Shaw

Hello! I’ve got a post full of updates for you.

First, our new chicks are here! They arrived at our post office early Friday morning. As soon as we’d dropped Daphne off at school, Jer and I headed over to pick them up, our fingers crossed that all three had made it here alive. After all, two days bumping about in a cardboard box with nothing but some green gelatinous substance to consume when you’re a newborn baby is kind of rough.

All the peeping from their box reassured us that most of them had made it, though. And, lo and behold, when I pried open the lid at home, we saw not three but FOUR frantic red chicks. Yep, they gave us an extra, just in case one didn’t make it, according to the explanation on the packing order. I suspect, however, that’s a convenient excuse for offloading a male chick. If I had to wager, I’d say we will have another rooster in our flock.

The chicks are thriving, I’m happy to report. They are energetic and are eating, drinking, and pooping like mad. I see no obvious signs of weakness or illness, so they’re off to a good start. They’re currently living in their brooder in our guest space, where they have their special chick starter-food, their water, their heater, and paper towels over their wood shavings so they don’t try to eat the wood.

I change their towels and water at least three times a day, and though I was afraid I’d find this annoying, I’m enjoying taking care of them. I’d forgotten how much I like brooding chicks. They’re soft and adorable, and their little peeps are sweet. I can see them from my spot at our dining room table, where I often work. They’re great company while Daph’s at school.

On a writerly note, my short piece of contemporary fiction, “In Dreams and After,” was indeed published on August 21st in the debut issue of Paper Cranes Literary.

As exciting as that was, I also experienced a strange discomfort when I read it in the digital edition. It had been a while since I’d looked at this piece, and seeing it in such a beautiful, official medium after that length of time, “completed” so to speak, I was acutely aware of its imperfections. I noticed some inconsistencies in both its style and ideas, and I felt a little embarrassed. My immediate response was, oh gosh, this wasn’t ready!

Too late, of course. It was published; it had found its forever home. It was what it was. Though I loved it and did feel a lot of pride in it, I also wondered if I’d somehow been hasty. I saw how I could have made it better, but I also remember feeling like I had done everything possible for it at the time I submitted it for consideration.

It’s also important to remind myself, the editors of the magazine said nothing about any deep structure issues when they notified me they’d accepted it. They were complimentary of the piece before noting they would only make a few line edits for clarity. So, the issues with content must not have been as obvious or evident as they felt to me when I read the publication myself. Still, I was uneasy.

I talked about it with Jer. He used to write a pop culture column in Houston’s Envy magazine, and he promised me my feelings were normal. He said when he was first published, he would go back and carefully read his article after it came out, and he’d always find something wrong with it, things he wanted to change: a different word here instead of that one, or cutting the last two sentences of a certain paragraph because they were unnecessary, or ironing out a slightly-awkward phrase, etc.

My advice? Once it’s out, don’t read your work, he said.

Really?

Yep. Take a quick scan if you need to, he replied. Make sure everything is there or look at any line edits they made. But don’t read it carefully or thoroughly. Don’t reread it to experience it because you will always find something objectionable. Why do that to yourself?

I think he’s right. Plus, his advice reminded me of something Judy Blume said in her Masterclass on writing. She talked about the importance of reading your work out loud before it’s published so you can hear how it sounds and edit for fluency. She learned this the hard way, when she began doing audio recordings of her novels and would try to rephrase things in the studio because she realized they sounded better a different way, and the editors shut her down. It was too late, they told her. She had to read everything exactly the way it was printed on the page.

I realized, in retrospect, Blume (a best-selling, award-winning icon) experienced what I was feeling and what Jer was talking about. So, yes, my feelings must be normal.

It’s just a common, and hard, truth: If you look closely at your published work, you will always find things you want to change.

There is no such thing as a perfect story, after all, even when it has made its way through multiple self and peer reviews, through the submissions process, and across an editor’s desk. All you can do is the best you can in the time you have to work on that piece. Then, you have to resist this perfectionism once the piece is out in the world. All while being grateful that anyone wanted to publish it at all.

You have to let it go, let it be. You have to recognize it has found its home–a beautiful thing–and believe that someone will like it, even if it’s just one person. That’s the essence of publishing, truly.

You have to understand, too, that your imperfect published piece is an artifact of where you are currently in your writing journey. So, if it’s more flawed “than it should be,” that’s okay. It’s evidence that you’re on a path of learning, of growth. That’s also a beautiful thing.

I am telling myself these things while working to get comfortable with them.

Luckily, I didn’t feel as much awkwardness when my next piece was published less than two weeks later. “Hello, Dear,” my ghost story, was in fact published by Amaranth in their fall anthology, The Veneficium Feminae.

I experienced a different sort of anxiety with this one, however. More pre-publication nerves than post-. I’d resubmitted my story with the suggested changes to plot (and then some) and felt good about it. But, I heard nothing back from the publisher. No acknowledgment of receipt, nothing about the forthcoming pub, nada.

I didn’t reach out to ask about it because I didn’t want to be needy or annoying. I want to be professional, first and foremost, with everyone in the publishing world, regardless of their work style. Some people are more pressed for time and less communicative than others.

But, as the days crept closer to September 1st (the proposed pub date), I thought, Oh Jeez. Maybe they didn’t like what I did. Maybe they changed their minds!

Fine, but wouldn’t they tell me?

Wait, would they?

They were under no obligation to me. They were a small press; they weren’t paying me. I hadn’t signed a contract. They owed me nothing, really.

For days, I checked my email and social media feverishly, looking for some indication of what was happening.

Even on the day of September 1st, I saw nothing, and the weight of impending disappointment threatened to crush me. I couldn’t put it out of mind, even with everything else going on.

Finally, on the morning of September 2nd, I checked my email and saw the notification that the book was live. It was also the first time I saw the title and realized what the editors had done. They’d derived from our seven accepted stories a unifying theme of feminist horror. Suddenly, their suggested revisions made more sense. Those suggestions had indeed made my story more interesting and satisfying, but they’d also made it fit the overarching theme much better.

I was thrilled and so, so relieved! But then, I couldn’t get into the folder containing our e-copies and promo materials, which included custom artwork for each story. I thought I would lose my sanity completely! I had to email the editor to request access to the folder before I could see anything, and that meant waiting another whole day. The suspense nearly wrecked me, but finally I got in for a look.

I was flattered to see they’d made very few line edits to my story. It was also easier to read in publication this time around; I didn’t agonize over it the way I did with “In Dreams and After,” though of course I know it’s not perfect. (It’s arguably a little slow in the beginning, and the part post-first encounter with the old woman might drag on a bit too long. There are also a couple of formatting errors, though I don’t count those as mine.)

I was able to enjoy the success a little more easily this time.

I love the artwork for my story, too.

Granted, it’s not entirely precise. I’m not sure if the artist only went on descriptions of my story instead of reading it herself, or if she was trying to convey the essence of it without giving too much away. I’d like to think the latter, but regardless, it’s beautiful and it’s based on my original story and it’s not something I had to commission and pay for myself. How many new authors can say that?

So there you go! Several updates, plus my publication angst. But I am now indeed a published author of three pieces, with two more due out before the year ends.

It is a solid start. And, overall, I’m having a good time. Writing is immensely satisfying, and that’s ultimately what counts.

In the meantime, I’m taking a break from brand-new projects and submissions. I want to focus instead on finishing my longer works-in-progress. That’s where my next phase of growth needs to happen, if my long-term goal is to publish a well-crafted, engaging novel one day.

Happy fall, y’all! Please share with me any tips for overcoming post-publication perfectionism, if you have them. I’m sure they’ll help!

See you next week!

XOXO,

Jenn