Dating Again

This Saturday I attended a class at The Loft on publishing, and learned that getting published is pretty much like dating.

1. The more you get your stuff out there, the more likely you'll find someone who is interested.
2. You can't be shy...force yourself to approach as many publications as possible.
3. Contact publications in as many ways as you can (email, snail mail, websites, social networks).
4. Ignore what publications say they want (formatting/style): just send them your stuff anyway.
5. Don't let rejection get you down.
6. Aim low at first ~ certain, less-desirable, publications are more likely to say yes.
7. Once you've conquered the less-desirable publications, ditch them to aim higher.
8. In finding "the one," remember you just need one yes out of hundreds.
9. If two publications are interested in you, play one off the other to get what you want.
10. View "the one" as a partner ~ neither you nor your publisher is more or less important.

Now, that's not really how I, personally, dated. My dating strategy was to just go out with whoever asked me out, keep going out with them if I liked them but not if I didn't want to anymore, and if nobody asked me out just keep doing my own stuff. So, I may be in trouble with the publishing thing. I'm not too lazy to write a frickin' novel, but I may be too lazy to bother with the publishing game.

So here's my plan, if publishing is like finding "the one". I met my husband simply because he was seated next to me at our graduate school commencement ceremony, so perhaps that's also how I'll meet my publisher. From now on, wherever I am, I'll ask the person sitting or standing to my left if they want to publish my novel. Problem solved.