When I was in my twenties, when I was at my most productive, I hated submitting work for publication. A huge weariness fell on me, my limbs were concrete being poured into concrete, my chest and my head hurt, my breath became fast and shallow. Despite desperately wanting to do it, I just could not. It was too scary.
Despite the amount of physical strength I would have to summon – having to walk into a gale to turn on my computer, listening to the printer make nails on a blackboard noises as it chewed in one sheet of paper after another – I would have flurries of half-hearted trips to the post box with three or four brown envelopes (not forgetting to include the all-important SAE).
These short forays into publication mostly met with rejection. I wasn’t disappointed, because I knew the returns would all be polite no thank you notes. It was just coincidence that, when I tore open the envelope, my eyes started to sting and something deep and hollow clutched at my chest; it’s all fine, I’d say, my smile watery.
My friend, who also submitted to journals, would get angry – just send them; what’s the worst that can happen? It huuuurts, I’d whine, and neither of us could see the other’s point. I assumed he had an overblown sense of his own brilliance; he thought I swanned around, heady and unproven. He bull-headed, me acting like I had some wasting disease. Fucking poets.
So, starting again, I decided that I had grown up enough, was comfortable enough with myself now, that I wouldn’t let this submission malady sweep over me. And I’ve done an alright job of it. The trouble is, I’ve let it slacken for three months. Now I see submitting is the same as training for a marathon – you’ve got to do it. That pain, why, it’s only muscles being surprised into action.
But, man, does it hurt; so much that trying to start again, I can just feel myself bodily, the whole temporal mess of me, aching – hollow chested, anxious-breathed, all of my glass joints splintering. I feel sick and I very much don’t like it. It hurts like hell and I realise that I’ve written 400 words to stop me from submitting anything. But, look at the time. I have an hour. An hour I can fill with maybe just one little email to an editor. Even though I know I’m red-faced and gasping and look ridiculous, I know that doesn’t matter. What matters is the writing and the trying.
Last Train of Thought 