My office is locked & how to steal from your friends

RIP e-Machine, circa 2006

Alas, I am not the Fonze. I cannot knock it here or tap it that and I have not enough 'tude to toss any longer to make it come on. My computer is dead. I am left with only a laptop with no software and no way to load any because the disk drive doesn't work and no way to download any because it will not allow connections to any sites other than Yahoo and wack-a-doo central.

So, I am waiting till this weekend when a gracious family member has offered me an old Mac in my state of need. I started out as a Mac, but then became a PC, but I'll use an XYZ, a ING, a TLC, I don't care, so long as I can write.

I will not be thwarted! now--on to the writing tip of the day!

Ok, my tip today. Steal from your friends. Their ideas? No!! Their research. One of the most important things about getting your work published is finding the right place to submit it. You have to take the time to look at old issues, or go online and look at excerpts and read about the magazine...all that jazz to determine if what you have to "sell" is what they "buy."

But where to start? There are hundreds, yet thousands of places to submit. One thing I like to do is look at the credits of writers I admire. Where did they publish? Is that somewhere that I would like to see myself in print? I use their credits as a "short list" if you will. A way to whittle down the haystack.

Here's a writer I love as a person and who is a force to be reckoned with as a writer. http://shelliezacharia.blogspot.com/ She and I have been in the same journals in the past. I know her taste is good. So I took her credits and researched those mags. I found a few that I thought were a good fit for me and submitted. I got some rejections. But I also got a bite!
http://www.summersetreview.org/ Spring 2009 issue picked up one of me stories.

So, go forth and steal. Don't know anyone. Steal from me. http://www.amywilloughbyburle.com/ Feel free to look at my website, steal from my "short list" of lit mags and see if any of them are a fit for your work. Then submit! You might get a bite.