#0020 Planner or Pantser? Both should develop alternatives

Taking the sting out of rejection, Part Eight

Last time I got around to the recommendation to be specific as a way to embrace rejection. Today I’d like to focus on another idea gleaned from Dr. Beth Kurland’s Greater Good Science Center’s article.

Kurland writes:

In life things are rarely linear or perfect… When we come up against an obstacle, we feel like something’s wrong, or that we’ve failed. This mindset is a big cue of threat for our nervous system and can cause us to not only get derailed, but give up.

 Kurland’s view is that we should anticipate and plan for obstacles. A good way to work with the inevitable obstacle course of life: develop alternatives.

I am a planner. Earlier this week I needed to take my car to the dealership for servicing. Because I’d been there before, I knew the fastest route via the freeway (Plan A). I also considered the possibility of a jackknifed 18-wheeler blocking lanes on that freeway, which would reroute me to streets parallel to said freeway (Plan B) and visualized other surface-street routes farther from the freeway (Plan C).

I nicknamed the ginger tabby on the left Plan A, next one over is Plan B, then there’s Plan C in the middle, Plan D is hunkered down, and all the way on the right showing off a purr-ty profile is Plan E. (Source: pexels)

Some would say my planning nature sounds exhausting or seems a waste of energy. Especially the pantsers out there. (These are the folks who dive into a novel or art project without an outline or sketch, aka, they create by the seat of their pants.) Why bother with all the plans?

To which I reply: yup, sometimes I do get tired coming up with plans, and sometimes the initial plan works out just fine. But what if Plan A doesn’t work out? Or even Plan B? By having the other possibilities — when I develop alternatives — I keep the Fight, Flight, Freeze reactions at bay. Which is the point.

An easy way to apply this concept for our 100 Rejections Club is with simultaneous submissions. 

Let’s say you’ve got a fiction manuscript and want to be represented by a literary agent. Would it make more sense to send a query letter to (1) just a single agent or, perhaps, (2) several of the more than 600 agents currently listed on Duotrope looking to represent fiction writers? (The answer is #2.)

Or you’d really like to attend a one-week artist residency sometime in the summer. Will you have a better chance if you apply only to Hedgebrook or to several options? (Trick question! Hedgebrook is a two- to four-week residency for women-identifying writers 18 or older, so the answer is several options not including Hedgebrook because guidelines.*)

One more. You might remember my sharing how, as a newbie writer, I submitted just one thing to just one place at just one time. During the inevitable waiting period, I ended up frozen. Not good for my nervous system or my creative self-expression.

Now I submit each piece to several literary journals at the same time for several 100 Rejections Club reasons. 

1. Sometimes I receive constructive criticism from more than one editor that helps me revise the piece. 

2. Other times an editor encourages me to submit something else for consideration. 

3. I know I’m trying. 

4. For Inlandia’s 100 Rejections Club, I might gather the most monthly rejections for bragging rights (YaY).

Let me caution you, though, that simultaneous submissions are not always the way to go.

• Literary journals occasionally don’t want to have spent time on a submission that’s then withdrawn due to acceptance elsewhere and will state in their guidelines that they do not accept simultaneous submissions. 

• Contests sometimes want exclusive review time for judging submissions and state in their guidelines that they do not accept simultaneous submissions.

• Literary agencies often don’t want more than one agent at their agency queried and state in their guidelines that they do not accept simultaneous submissions.

*Always read all the guidelines before submitting to be sure you and your creative self-expression match what the agents/residencies/literary journals are wanting, including if they do not accept simultaneous submissions.

There’s lots of advice on approaches to tracking simultaneous submissions. I may or may not share some of my experiences in a future post. Before then, I intend to dive into how to shift your mindset to better embrace rejection. 

Next time: Taking the sting out of rejection, Part Nine