Final Blog Post

            I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since my mentor and I discussed the idea of a creative writing Signature project. My essential question at the beginning of the project was ‘what is required to get a short story published?’. I learned that publishing a short story requires a lot of time, including time to write, to revise, and to research publishing opportunities. It also requires a great amount of attention to detail, both while revising and organizing the stories into the correct format for publication. Deadlines are also very helpful or else I’m sure I never would have sent anything out for publication. I don’t know if rejection, which was one of the challenges I faced, is required for publication but I do believe it is an integrated part of the writing process.

            My proudest moment from this project was definitely Triangle Open Mic Night. I didn’t think the Open Mic Night would play a huge role in my project but it became an excellent capstone to my project. I put a lot of work into organizing the night, so to have so many people show up and participate, especially on the spot, was absolutely amazing. Aside from forgetting my cards to hand out, my actual presentation went well. I slowed down enough that people heard my story, which was my main concern before the presentation.

            I would advise future Signature students to, first and foremost, find an on-campus mentor who they know they can work with. My project’s success depends largely on my mentor, who guided me through the revision process, helped me set deadlines for publication, and encouraged and aided in the organization of the Open Mic Night. I knew her from previous independent projects, which was very helpful because we had an established relationship. Secondly, creating a set of guidelines for both the student and the mentor was really helpful. My mentor and I had a system where I had a set amount of work to finish before the school year started and then each time we met, we came up with the next ‘assignment’. I had one ‘free bee’ where I could miss an assignment, but if I missed more than one, we would call the project off. This not only kept me on track but also served to keep open lines of communication between my mentor and myself.

Presentation

I've been thinking a lot about my presentation for Alumnae Weekend. It's interesting how I will be telling the story of my stories in a way, how they started out as the result of Starbucks caffeine and become so much more polished thanks to my mentor. I want to share some of my writing during the presentation but I also want to include visuals so it's not just me, standing and reading. I don't know if I will try to find photographs or select key lines to show in my PowerPoint. Either way, I definitely want something for my audience to look at while I'm speaking.
I also want to give them access to my other work. I will probably end up self-publishing my stories on Medium before the presentation and then have cards to hand out for anyone who wants to read more. I don't mind self-publishing, though six months ago I was very opposed to it. Medium will still let my stories be read and hopefully enjoyed, which is what I've wanted all along so I think it will be a good place to put my final work.

Triangle Open Mic Night is a Go

Open Mic Night will happen on April 23rd, 7-9pm in Lab Theater! I sent out an email to the whole school with the announcement just before March break and designed posters over break that I will hopefully put up soon. I spoke with someone at my school so there will be a microphone, which will help everyone to hear. The next step is organizing food, I guess.
In terms of publishing, I've been rejected from most of the places I submitted to, which isn't as soul-crushing as I always expected publishing rejection letters to be. It didn't damage my faith in myself as a writer or anything. Really, they just made me want to send my work out to more magazines and see what happens. However, I still haven't heard back from a couple places so I'm going to wait before submitting anywhere else.

A Triangle Open Mic Night is in the Works

Last night, I met with the co-heads of my school's literary magazine, Triangle, and they agreed to help sponsor my open reading. We have a date set for April 23 and are still working on some of the details, but at the moment it looks like there will be food, various types of lighting and, basically, a lot of fun. We plan to design it to be fairly informal so there won't be any pre-sign up. Girls will just be able to show up on the night of with their work memorized or night and perform.
This is the first big event I've ever organized and I'm a little nervous about pulling it off, but mostly excited. So far, I've learned this type of thing involves a lot of emails and meetings. I've had two meetings about it so far and I am scheduled to meet with the school's Director of Activities early next week to go over more details. The Triangle co-heads could not have been more eager or supportive in this endeavor, for which I am very grateful, and I am looking forward to spearheading the rest of this project.

Next Steps

I missed some school due to illness, so I'm delighted to be back and working on my project again. I met with my mentor on Tuesday to discuss next steps. I have been rejected from a few of the publishing places I sent my work to but I am waiting to hear back from a couple more. In the meantime, I am hoping to organize an open reading during the spring where students from my school, including myself, will be able to present poetry, fiction, or music in front of an audience. I am eager to delve into the world of spoken word as opposed to just written as I know from poetry slams I've been apart of before, that it's a whole new ball game. Similarly, I am beginning to work on my final presentation and thinking about how to tell my story of this project. Currently, I am thinking of incorporating a spoken word component but I'll have to develop the idea further later down the road.

Why Publish

I've been thinking about this idea of publication and why it's such a popular idea among writers. I made a point in one of my blogs how writing for yourself is important, which is true, but ironic, because many writers are writing for an audience. That knowledge, that someone else will read their words, changes the writing, no matter how much a writer tries to 'write for themselves'. I think the only truly authentic writing may be what we put in our diaries and other places we think no one will see. This isn't a necessarily a bad thing either. Knowing there will be an audience puts pressure on a writer to make their words more accessible, cohesive, and just generally better.
But why do so many people want to get published? There's obviously a certain ego-factor, of testing your writing against the big bad publishing world, but there must something about the idea of other people reading your writing that is enticing. I included publishing in this project because it was something I had never done before and I wanted to try it under some guidance before I was older and without the opportunity to access the resources my Signature project provides. But still, the idea of publishing is enticing to me, even if I don't know entirely why.

Next Steps

I met with my mentor on Tuesday and we discussed what to do during this 'wait time'. Some of the places I submitted work to will respond fairly 'quickly' (2 months), others will take much longer (6 months). It's a little frustrating because I want to know the results right now, but I also think this 'wait time' will be interesting as I can be flexible with what I want to do.
My mentor and I decided that looking into contests I can enter my work into would be a good next step. I will begin researching once the semester ends (8 days until Revels!!!) and return from winter break with a list of possibilities, much as I did while looking for literary magazines. What I think will be interesting about contests is if they have more narrow requirements-theme, line, etc.-than literary magazines and how I will work around that.