Posted by on Mar 1, 2007 in Uncategorised | 4 Comments

The virtues of organisation

Earlier this week I had a submission returned through the post. Apparently I had sent it to the wrong address, although it was impossible to tell as the recipient had stuck a nice big label over the address area, and when I tried to peel it off, the envelope tore.

By asking colleagues at Zoetrope online workshop if they’d had a recent reply from the journal in question, I was able to find out the correct address and the story, duly re-enveloped, headed off again. But without my own little return address label on the back, the submission would never have got back to me and – unaware of its fate – I would have taken to cursing a completely blameless editor for never replying.

If you take your writing seriously, you simply have to set up business-like systems: a database to track your submissions, good labels and envelopes to send them out – and of course, return address labels so your wayward babies can come home if necessary.

And in other news, my essay on Beijing is live at Per Contra – http://www.percontra.net/6sexton.htm

4 Comments

  1. LMD
    1st March 2007

    Good morning, Kay, and yes, the organization is imperative. However, I’d love to know more about how people organize. For me, it’s a junior-sized 5″ x 7″ spiral bound notebook, with each page a particular story. Yeah, I have to flip through it to see what’s where, but I fear to be too organized, such as an Excel sheet. Why fear? Because these are my creative babies, and putting them into an Excel sheet seems constraining! Okay, so it’s a tiny superstition. The other interesting point about the spiral bound notebook for tracking is that it reminds me of each story. When a story is accepted, I put a red inked date at the bottom of the current entry, showing when it’s available for reprint.

    I’d love to know how others track their submissions and when they can be reprinted, etc.

    How do you do it?

    ~ McKenna

    Reply
  2. Kay Sexton
    1st March 2007

    Well, I use an excel spreadsheet because my commitment to myself is to keep 100 submissions (that’s fiction and non-fiction btw) out there at all times and I couldn’t do that without a spreadsheet! As of today it’s 107 pitches, stories or commissions in play.

    Reply
  3. TitaniaWrites
    2nd March 2007

    I keep track of my submissions in a document which I created as a webpage and posted on my website but only I know the link. That way, I can access it wherever I am, not just on my home computer. Maybe that means I am obsessive!

    But I also have a blog together with two other writers where we keep track of submissions, hits and rejections. I’ve never done this before, and it’s very enlightening. We would be delighted to have other writers join us. The blog is http://writingstats2007.blogspot.com/. Leave us a comment there if you’d like to become part of the team!

    Reply
  4. Tribeless
    3rd March 2007

    Someone in Zoetrope put me onto the wonderful, and free, Sonar Submission Tracking software. Used a spreadsheet before this, but Sonar much better, as allows me to hold market details, track submissions (including cutting an pasting replies, etc).

    http://www.spacejock.com/Sonar.html

    Mark

    Reply

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