Latest / The Culture Club: Books, Art, Film, Music & Entertainment / The Trembling Hand: Overcoming the Fear of Submitting Your Work | The Culture Club
Transcript
- There is a specific kind of silence that happens right before you hit send on a submission email, a silence so loud it drowns out your own heartbeat. It’s not just anxiety; it’s the terrifying weight of asking a stranger to decide if your soul is worth reading. I want you to picture it with me for a second. You’ve spent three months polishing a short story. Maybe it’s a poem, maybe it’s an essay about your grandmother’s kitchen, but it doesn’t matter what it is, because in this moment, it feels like you’ve carved a piece off your own chest and are holding it out, trembling, toward a faceless editor. The cursor blinks. Blink. Blink. Blink. And you think, what if they don’t get it? What if they think it’s derivative? What if they read it and feel nothing? That pause, that electric hum between finishing and submitting, is where most of us die inside. I know it well. I have stared at that blinking cursor until my eyes burned. I have drafted emails, deleted them, rewritten them, and then closed my laptop entirely, promising myself I’d submit it tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes, because tomorrow is just another day to be afraid. We tell ourselves we’re being careful, that we’re waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect revision, the perfect clarity. But really, we’re hiding. We’re hiding from the possibility that our best work might not be enough for the gatekeepers of today. And isn’t that the cruelest joke? We pour our hearts into creating something authentic, something raw, only to be stopped by the very system designed to receive it. Let’s dig into the velvet of this fear, shall we? Because beneath the panic, there’s something else. Something tender. We need to talk about the people on the other side of that screen. We tend to imagine editors as some sort of high priests or priestesses, sitting in marble halls, judging our souls based on grammar and plot structure. But the truth is so much more mundane, and frankly, so much more human. Most literary journal editors are volunteers. They’re grad students who drink too much coffee. They’re working moms trying to squeeze in a read during nap time. They’re people who love stories just as desperately as you do, but who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of submissions flooding their inboxes every single week. When I was younger, I thought rejection meant my work was bad. Now I know that rejection often means their inbox was full, or their taste was tired, or they simply didn’t have the energy to connect with your voice that particular Tuesday. This realization didn’t make the sting hurt less immediately, but it did take the power away from the judgment. It wasn’t about your worth. It was about logistics. It was about timing. It was about the chaotic, messy reality of human attention spans. We project our insecurities onto these strangers, assuming they hold a mirror up to our deepest flaws. But they’re just people. Tired, overworked, hopeful people. And when you realize that, the monster under the bed shrinks a little. He becomes just a guy named Dave who has to read five hundred submissions before he can go home to his dog. So, what’s the texture of this vulnerability? If we strip away the ego, which is usually the loudest part of the conversation, what are we actually offering? We’re offering a connection. When you submit your work, you are saying, I see the world this way, and I wonder if you can see it too. That is an act of radical trust. It’s brave. It’s courageous. And it’s necessary. Think about the alternative. If you never submit, you never test the waters. You keep your art safe in the drawer, where it’s warm and familiar, but also stagnant. Art needs air. It needs to breathe. It needs to collide with another consciousness. Yes, sometimes that collision is gentle. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it leaves a bruise. But bruises heal. Regret does not. I remember sending my first collection of poems to a small press. I was twenty-four, terrified, convinced that if they rejected me, I would cease to exist. They didn’t reject me, exactly. They published two poems and ignored the rest. It felt like a partial erasure. But those two poems stayed in print for years. People wrote to me saying they related to them. That tiny fragment of connection changed the trajectory of my life. It told me I belonged in the room. But even if they had said no, even if they had ghosted me entirely, the act of sending it would have been a victory. Because I chose to show up. I chose to risk the awkwardness for the chance of resonance. Let’s talk about the ghosts we carry. For many of us, the fear of submitting isn’t new. It’s built on a foundation of previous rejections. Maybe you got a form letter last year. Maybe you got a personal note that said, ‘It’s good, but not quite right for us.’ Those words can linger like smoke in a house. They make us question our instincts. They make us second-guess our style, our voice, our perspective. But here’s the thing about form letters: they are not verdicts. They are data points. They are the industry’s way of managing volume without getting personal. A generic rejection is not a reflection of your artistic merit. It is a reflection of their current needs. Did they just publish ten essays about grief? Then they won’t take another one. Did they look for bright, playful pieces this month? Then your dark, brooding noir won’t fit. It’s not about quality. It’s about curation. It’s about balance. And that balance changes every single month. So when you feel that hesitation rising in your throat, remind yourself that you are not failing. You are simply not matching the current aesthetic puzzle. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s preferable. Because it means there’s a better fit out there. There’s a journal that loves the exact weirdness you bring to the table. There’s an editor who will read your work and lean forward in their chair, whispering, yes, yes, yes. But you’ll never find them if you stay frozen in front of the send button. So how do we move forward? How do we turn that paralysis into action? I think it starts with reframing the ask. Stop thinking of submission as a plea for approval. Start thinking of it as an invitation to collaborate. You are inviting an editor to enter your world. You are giving them a gift, whether they accept it or not. The gift is the story itself. The gift is the image, the rhythm, the truth. When you shift your mindset from ‘please like me’ to ‘here is what I have,’ the power dynamic flips. You are no longer the beggar at the gate. You are the creator standing tall, offering your creation to the public square. It’s a subtle shift, but it changes everything. It allows you to breathe. It allows you to write with more confidence, because you’re writing for yourself first, and hoping someone else finds meaning in it second. And that hope is a beautiful thing. It’s a shared ritual. Writers have been doing this for centuries. They’ve been mailing manuscripts across oceans, trusting that somewhere, someone is waiting to hear their voice. We are part of that lineage. We are part of that great, noisy, messy conversation. And our voices matter. Not because we’re perfect, but because we’re present. So next time you sit down to draft that cover letter, remember that you are joining a tradition. You are adding your thread to the tapestry. And even if the tapestry looks different than you imagined, it’s still yours. And it’s still beautiful. I want to leave you with this thought. The anxiety of submitting is real, but it is also a signpost. It points to the things that matter most to you. If you weren’t afraid, it wouldn’t mean anything. So let the fear be there. Let it sit in the passenger seat while you drive. Don’t let it steer, but don’t kick it out either. Acknowledge it. Thank it for trying to protect you. And then hit send anyway. One click. That’s all it takes. To open the door. To let the light in. To find out if someone else is listening. And if they aren’t, that’s okay too. Because you showed up. You spoke your truth. And that, my friend, is the only victory that truly counts. The rest is just noise. So go ahead. Open that document. Copy that text. Fill in the subject line. And let go. I’ll be right here, cheering you on, whether you get accepted or not. Because I’m proud of you for trying. For caring. For creating. That’s the culture club spirit. That’s the heart of it all. Tell me more about that feeling of relief that comes after. I’m listening. Stay brave, stay curious, and keep sending those emails. I’ll catch you in the next one. Love.