I spent nearly the entire day yesterday immersed in the study of reading and writing. It was an intense day that started a little before 6 a.m., where I wrote about 3,000 words in my daybook about various things; that writing session served no other purpose than as my Morning Pages, epic-style, for those of you who know Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

On most good days, I stop there. But I had the time (I have no idea how this happened) to push through and look for publishing opportunities for the upcoming year. One of the main ideas to emerge from my early-morning writing was to create some real, reachable goals to further my writing career a little more aggressively. So, with very little effort, I found about 25 markets that suited me perfectly. While most of these publications are not paying markets, they would provide me with some necessary big-name clips to make the paying markets give me a second look when I’m pitching a feature idea or submitting a new piece of fiction.

I selected four markets for the upcoming academic year: one fiction, one nonfiction, and two scholarly education publications. Their deadlines range from September to January, so they are spread out nicely over my peak writing season, the fall and early winter.

The piece that is due December 1, the short fiction, has me most concerned. I should have no problem at all with the creative nonfiction piece due in October (the subject is nature), and the two scholarly pieces, due in September and January, are in my field of specialty: metacognition and motivating reluctant writers. It’s that short fiction piece that is generating anxiety. Most of my fiction has been rejected, and I wanted to know why. I thought the writing was good enough for strong consideration, but most places where I submit to disagree. I decided to read a little more about the structure of the short story and see if I could see any glaring weaknesses in my approach.

I was very surprised by what I learned–not necessarily that the information seemed like breaking news to me; rather, that the information seemed like something I should have known (and was probably taught) many years ago. Yet, in all of my conversations with fellow writers and colleagues, the purpose of the short story has never really been discussed. We always spend so much time talking about the stories themselves and not about their greater purpose.

So what does all that mean? Perhaps my colleagues and writer-friends all know this, and they’ve made the awful assumption that I, too, have been writing with such a deeper understanding of the short story. But I confess now, for the entire world to read, that for all these years I have never given the purpose of the short story much thought. Instead, I have focused on the importance of the writing process to tell a good story, a story that entertains. Here’s what I’ve been missing all these years. Read the rest of this entry »