taking steps toward my writing career. finally.

For those of you who know, I recently changed paths in my life, and future life–very drastically, I might add. I have been on the pre-med track my entire childhood, to my teens. Recently, this has changed as I choose to do what I WANT, not what I feel like I NEED to do. This means, getting more professionally involved in writing.

Since this is a new change for me and life path, I FREAKED out over the summer, feeling unprepared and uneducated in how to further myself in this area of study. When I was primarily pre-med, I knew to volunteer at hospitals and get internships wherever I could medically. Now, I was in a whole new ballpark, and frankly I was terrified. I figured the next step was to find literary magazines and to submit–I knew I needed to be published, and I wanted to be published. With this, I submitted EVERYWHERE.

I sent in over 20 poems to over 30 magazines. It was the most insane thing I’ve ever witnessed and done because it was so new to me, and so different, but I loved it. After receiving many rejections, and ‘almost, but no’ emails, I finally was published. Four times. Those four acceptances outweighed the 30+ rejections, and I was so proud of myself. I now feel like an actual, verified writer, and I am ecstatic to put these publications on my resume. Now, this is nothing to be cocky about, I know–but that those four glimmers of hope telling me ‘hey, you can write,’ is all I need to keep going, keep submitting, keep getting rejected, and keep getting accepted.

In case you would like to take a look:

Red Queen Literary Magazine Issue IV: can I induce apoptosis?

Minute Magazine Issue 4: I Started When It Was Cool

Minute Magazine Issue 4: Things I Think About While Hiding In The Closet

The Mantle Issue 5: Alcohol Addiction Is 50% Genetics & 50% Poor Coping Skills

 

Best,

Julia Merante

 

2 Replies to “taking steps toward my writing career. finally.”

  1. Congratulations! That’s a very exciting experience. Rejection is definitely part of the writer’s journey. As someone who’s always sort of identified as a writer, I still can’t really say what I exactly plan to do with my writing. There’s goals in my head, but also doubts. Those doubts keep me writing, though. I envy your positive attitude—keep it up! I’m excited to read some of your poetry this semester.

    -Connor

  2. Congratulations Julia! That’s amazing!!!!! I’m happy to see you furthering yourself as a writer and taking the opportunity to send out your work. You’ve made a very good point about the submitting process. I think a lot of people think that there is only a handful of places to send your work and if it doesn’t work out your piece has to be majorly revised. In reality, there are many literary magazines and sometimes whether a place chooses our work has a lot to do with the style of the magazine. Not to discredit the importance of editing until you feel ready to submit but sometimes the work is complete and its just a matter of finding the right fit for the piece.

    Thank you for sharing and good luck writing!

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