How Being a Magazine Editor Made Me a Better Writer
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When I emailed Kailey to ask if she wanted to add my magazine Antigone to September’s submissions page, I was only half-joking when I said I found it easier to start my own literary magazine than to work up the courage to submit my writing to one. As a contributing writer, submitting your beloved essay or story can feel an awful lot like tossing your baby into the abyss. I missed deadline after submission deadline simply because I had no idea what was happening behind the scenes and I felt ill-equipped as a writer in the face of that unknown.
Starting my own literary magazine demystified the whole process for me. Working as an editor on the other side gave me a whole new perspective and made the idea of pitching my ideas to publications a lot less intimidating.
I arguably took the longest and most difficult road possible to come to this conclusion! So, to save other writers the trouble of launching a magazine of their own to learn this lesson, I wanted to share some of the things being an editor taught me about writing for and submitting to publications.
Getting past the daunting submissions page
For a first time writer, that submissions page can be incredibly daunting. Your creative censor (or simply imposter syndrome for some of us) instantly rears its head: the other writers are so much better than me. What if I’m so bad they laugh at me or don’t even bother to respond to my submission? What if the editors are too stupid to realise my creative genius and reject my piece? Worse: what if the editors are too stupid to realise I’m a total fraud and they publish my piece!?
Take a breath. Remember that you’re not sending your beloved piece off to the slaughter, to be judged by a panel of writing gods. You’re sending this to an ordinary, real person who is going to read your words. Editors are people too, so if you don’t get a response the publication might just be overrun with submissions. Most editors will eventually get back to you, if only with a quick “thanks, but no thanks”. If you hear nothing for weeks it might even be worth following up on your pitch.
Reading submissions guidelines
While the submissions page is scary, you absolutely must comb through it carefully. The reason publications have such clear and specific submission guidelines is not to intimidate or trick you; those guidelines are there to serve you as the writer and to make sure you have everything you need in your pitch. You have limited space in a pitch and getting it just right is more about doing justice to your piece than about the publication trying to make it impossible for you to get in. Not only that, specific guidelines save time for both you and the editor.
There’s also that dreaded bit about how the best chance of getting published with them is to be familiar with their publication. It seems like every publication out there says this. And if you haven’t read that particular magazine before it can be a discouraging instruction. What does it mean? Are you supposed to read all their back issues first? Is it for insiders and subscribers only? Not at all; familiarity with the publication is just an easy way for editors to cover their bases. Otherwise, a literary magazine might end up with a piece on mountain bikes or a sailing magazine with political analyses. Knowing what kind of thing they publish and having some familiarity with what they’ve already published naturally helps you as the writer too. It’s not about gatekeeping, it’s about helping writers find the best place for their work.
Understanding the creative process
Being an editor entailed guiding writers a little bit to bring out the best in their work; I even got to see some pieces progress from a bare-bones outline to a fully fledged essay. This gave me the unique opportunity to see how different writers approach their projects. I learned that there is no one “right” way to write. Instead, it is something you must learn for yourself through trial and error, something you must keep adapting as you grow and change as a writer.
As writers, we can sometimes get a bit obsessed with the idea that there is a magic solution, some ultimate key to the creative process—and that when we find it we will finally be able to write our masterpieces. Seeing diverse writers deliver up stunning pieces for Antigone made me realise that incredible writing can come from the least ideal circumstances and the most seemingly chaotic creative processes. What matters is paying attention to which process works for you and to make a concerted effort of turning that into a habit or regular routine. This always beats the eternal wait for inspiration to strike.
A better relationship with rejection
For me, by far the most difficult part of being an editor was turning submissions down. When I first had the idea to start Antigone, I never imagined I would even have contributors looking to write for the magazine. I was honoured just to hear from interested friends and writers. I wanted to publish everything I received. What I realised was that this would be a disservice not only to my readers, who expected a certain kind of thing from the magazine, but also to the contributing writers. Their work would be featured in a magazine that wasn’t a good fit for them or their piece. A piece that was incongruent with the rest of the issue would stand out—and not in a good way.
Learning how to write a rejection email turned out to be instrumental in building my confidence around sending submissions and in growing a thicker skin against rejections. I learned not to take rejection so personally because sometimes it is simply that my piece is not a good fit for the publication. It doesn’t mean I’m a failure as a writer, it doesn’t mean nothing I ever write will be good enough for that publication... It just means my piece might be better suited somewhere else or that it needs some more work.
In a way, I now look forward to rejections because they always signal opportunities for growth. A single line of feedback from an editor can be so much more valuable to a beginner writer than an acceptance out of politeness.
