Follow Your Ideas for Submission

The idea pops into your head. “Send this article to this editor.” Or as you are reading a magazine, you think, “I could send this editor an article about this personal experience or this how-to idea.” Or you are reminded about a connection you made months earlier at a conference and you haven't followed up with the agent or editor.

In each of these cases, how do you handle it? Some people shrug it and the “nudge” disappears. Others will take action and get their idea into the marketplace for consideration.  Without action, nothing happens.

From my years in publishing, I've learned the importance of taking action on a thought or idea. For example, I will call or email an author about their book proposal or manuscript, it will happen just on a day when they need some encouragement or direction.

Or my entry about The Writing Life will land in someone's mailbox on exactly the day they need the encouragement to move forward. Some people would call these accidents but to me, these actions from the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. As a Christian I believe God is guiding my daily actions and steps. Certainly I fail to follow that guidance but I've discovered remarkable things happen when I take action on those ideas.

For example, I've been wanting to attend a large conference in a couple of months yet I wondered how to budget for the conference fee.  One morning I got an idea that maybe I could do something else at that conference to help out such as volunteer to work registration or some other task. To follow through on my idea, I called a leader in the organization which sponsored the conference and pitched my idea of working the registration in a voice mail message.

The exact day of my call, this leader got a message that the person who was going to teach the publishing workshop was not going to be able to attend the conference.  My voice mail message and this cancellation arrived on exactly the same day. Was it coincidence? I don't believe so. I was asked to lead the publishing workshop at this conference. As a workshop leader, my fee for the conference is waived and I have a much larger opportunity than I could even have imagined.

Notice what happened in this story: I had an idea and I took action and made a phone call.

What ideas and possible actions are whirling in your writing life? Are you writing them down then crossing them off as you execute each one?   I appreciate the necessity of having dreams and ambitions for our writing—yet at the same time we must be taking consistent action for those dreams to turn into reality.