Don’t give up on your submissions

I’ve had a good writing start to my New Year. OK, calling it the New Year sounds SOOO  last January. I’ve achieved one of my longer term ambitions, which is my own humorous column. It’s called “The Blog of Samuel Pepys” and appears in local London paper The Greenwich Visitor. Our man is alive and well in contemporary Greenwich and causing havoc. It’s a chance to flex my character writing muscles, wallow in 17^th Century English and indulge in anachronisms. So far the editor hasn’t shot me so let’s hope this one carries on for a while.

Although I love writing humour, it can be tough finding a market for it. Many people think it's easy and don't recognise the skill it can take. Editors often use a staff writer whom they can trust, rather than chancing their arm (and circulation) with a freelance. It can be tricky adopting the right house style for a straightforward article: there are so many ways to come completely unstuck when you're trying to make the readers laugh. Blogging can be invaluable to showcase your ability to keep comedy going over the months. I'm sure it helped me.

Two weeks after that news came, the publishers to whom I’d sent a proposal for a how-to book on writing comedy came back to me and want to discuss it further. It had been five months in the pile and I was beginning to ponder where to take it next. Who knows what will happen with the idea? Since I started writing seriously twenty years ago, I’ve learned to accept the occasional “Hit” and live with the disappointments. Too much so: recent successes have been after I’d just about given up on the project.

What’s the lesson? Expect nothing, neither rejection nor triumph.  Just keep on researching your markets, writing, sending off, researching more markets, writing more and sending it off.  Reward your hard work, not your success or failure, with your favourite indulgence.

Mine’s a beer. Off to have one right now.

Speak soon!