WOW! Women On Writing Blog: Friday Speak Out!: Reduce. Re-use ...

That 3-R?ed mantra that works so well for aluminum cans and paper also works for writing. I?ll bet you didn?t know that, huh?

Reduce. With my plan you can reduce the number of topics you need to come up with. The number of submissions you can churn out increases exponentially if you simply follow my advice. (Okay, exponentially is a bit of an exaggeration. But the amount of stuff you send out will increase.)

Re-use. Take one writing idea and use it in a completely different way for another market. If you originally wrote it as a piece of nonfiction, put a twist to it and transform it into a fictional piece. If it started out as a humorous piece but there?s a call for a romance anthology, throw in some heaving bosoms and a chiseled Fabio-esque chest, and voila! You?ve got another submission to send out.

Recycle. Send your piece back into the submission cycle. Just because it was not accepted by a particular editor doesn?t mean it?s without merit. Perhaps the tone of your story was not right for that publication. That doesn?t mean it wouldn?t work for a different magazine or collection.

A couple of years ago I got my head stuck in a sink. It happened after my workday was over, in a staff bathroom with a tiny sink equipped with an overly-large faucet. I had a haircutting appointment right after work and was trying to wash my hair so I could save the $5 shampooing fee my stylist regularly tried to trap me with. Writing a creative nonfiction story about the experience ended exactly how that afternoon ended: a scraped scalp and a valuable lesson learned. (Stop being so darned cheap!) It ended up getting published in Not Your Mother?s Book?On Being a Woman.

Later, a different anthology was being developed, and in the proposed title was ?bad hair day? so I figured my stuck-in-the-sink story would be a perfect fit. Unfortunately, these were supposed to be fictional stories. I deliberately did not have my original story in front of me as I crafted a fabricated tale about that experience, nor did I even skim it to reacquaint myself with the experience, because I wanted this new piece to sound fresh and new, instead of becoming a mere rehashing. In the end of this story, a fire truck was called. Hunky firefighters broke down the door and smashed the sink. I got my picture taken with them. My little slice-of-life story became transformed into a totally new fictional story and ended up being published in that anthology by Mozark Press.

So with a new year beginning, banish that much-hated R word (rejection). Take what you might consider your writing ?trash??it?s been published already or it was rejected?and turn it into published treasure by reducing?reusing?and recycling.

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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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Source: http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2013/01/friday-speak-out-reduce-re-use-recycle.html

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