I often joke about my poor memory and how I live in the present like someone with brain damage. This is reinforced by the fact that I greet each and every day with a song in my heart, the sort of cockeyed optimism that only people with brain damage ever actually experience. Sure, by 5PM I’ve been worn down to a whiskey-guzzling nub and I’m ready to set myself on fire rather than face another second, but every morning I’m good.
The secret is short story submissions.
Never Tell Me the Odds
The secret to my bright and sunny mornings is possibilities. I submit a lot of stories, I respond to a lot of freelance jobs, and I usually have novels on submission and other projects in play. The vast majority of these efforts won’t pan out, but every day begins with the possibility that it will end with good news.
That’s powerful stuff. And it’s an addendum to my usual motto that you write exactly zero of the stories you don’t begin, and sell exactly zero of the projects you don’t submit: You also get to be excited about zero of the submissions you don’t make, or the jobs you don’t apply for.
That excitement is like oxygen. Every morning I wake up and it just might be the day I sell a story, or get a new freelance job, or learn someone is going to grossly overpay me to make a film adaptation of one of my novels. Or something else, who knows? The point is, because I keep my level of open potential opportunities high, I get to start every day with this rush of possibility. And, friend, let me tell you: It works. I don’t understand writers who don’t submit and have something in the works all the time for this very reason. Sure, 99% of my submissions, applications, and naked requests for free money fail. Doesn’t matter, because every day I wake up with a fresh scorecard, and that gets me through the rough times.
Of course, my liver also starts each day with a clean(ish) slate, and that helps too, not gonna lie.