To Blog or Not to Blog

“I thought you were going to try to get that piece published,” a writer friend said to me. This was just about a year ago, and I had recently posted a work-in-progress — a personal essay about the stigma surrounding public displays of emotion — on my blog. My intention was to continue to work on the piece until it was ready to submit to online literary journals. As far as I was concerned, publishing it “as is” on my blog was a kind of dress rehearsal.

But my friend set me straight at once. “Never post anything on your blog if there is a chance you’ll want to publish it,” she said, exasperated by my naiveté. She explained that most journals don’t accept submissions that have been published elsewhere, even in part. And that there is no point in lying about it since editors Google every piece prior to publication; if they find you out, you’ll be blacklisted forever.

I hopped right onto the Internet and scanned through the submission rules of several journals. They all said essentially the same thing: We accept only original material; we cannot publish anything that has appeared elsewhere, even if it’s just on your personal blog.

Not only did I feel like an idiot, I was disappointed that I had already blown my chances of publishing my essay before I’d even finished writing it. Luckily, I later found an online journal that didn’t object to its debut on my blog. But I’d learned an important lesson.

Since then, as I ponder the theme of my next post, I am faced with the difficult task of determining which topics are a) interesting enough for my blog, but b) not so interesting that I may want to submit them for publication elsewhere. To put it crudely, I must be careful not to shoot my wad.

This here blog post was going to be about the “all genders” bathroom sign I saw in the San Diego airport and the power of words. But since I may want to publish an essay about this topic in the future, instead I am blogging about the trials and tribulations of blogging.

See, I’m learning.

Just Hit Send

For more than a year, I’ve workshopped the third draft of my novel through my biweekly writers’ group. At long last, we’ve come to the very last chapter. I am both excited and a little nervous. Whether a novel’s end is happy or sad or somewhere in between, the most important thing is that it is satisfying. Many a time, I’ve torn through a great book only to be disappointed when the ending comes up short, leaving key issues unresolved. Even worse is when the final chapters tie everything up into a tidy little unrealistic and uninspired package. And I do not want my novel’s ending to fall into either of these categories.

I’ve spent the past several weeks fiddling around with the last few paragraphs of my final chapter. Tweaking a word here or there, and then putting it back. Alternately congratulating myself for my cleverness and questioning whether the members of my writing group will even understand the ending.

Of course, one of my main goals in joining my writers’ group was to get constructive feedback on my novel – both what is working and what is not. And if my novel’s current ending doesn’t work, the group will help me to identify the trouble spots and then I can improve them. Simple as that.

But I so desperately want them to love it! And this is why I have yet to hit the Send button that will thrust my final chapter out into the waiting inboxes of my writers’ group.

In the past week alone, two friends/soon-to-be beta readers have asked when my full manuscript will be available, and each time, I felt a little stab of panic. I explained that I’d planned to read through the manuscript again before sending it out, but clearly I am trying to buy some more time. I want my novel to be as good as it can be before my beta readers take it on. I want it to be DONE.

But that’s the point: it’s a work in progress. It won’t be done until it’s in print. And even then, a book is never really done. I recall several years ago attending a reading by the author Melissa Bank, who admitted that even as she reads passages from her novels on book tours, she nearly always changes or omits a word or two. Even as she is reading her book aloud, she is still editing it!

As writers, our work is never done. At some point, though, we must move on to the next unfinished project.

And it’s time for me to just hit Send. Woosh!