The 5 Stages of Submission

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to The Magical Mystery Blog.

Most artists and writers submit their work to various sites for publication or as a part of their portfolio. Portfolios are often used as samples of work to get into college or some grand institute. It’s a wonderful dream that most people have and often pursue. As a writer, I know what submitting work feels like all too well.  Much like there is the five stages of grieving, I’ve complied the five stages of submission.

1. Preparation (Motivation)

All your gear is ready. Pencils sharpened, your favorite beverage near you, music playing, ideas buzzing like bees in your head. You are ready to take on anything.  You immediately focus on those ideas and nothing else as you begin what you consider your magnum opus. When people see your submissions they will praise you like the God you are and you will immediately gain acceptance and/or prizes. You are on top of the world and nothing will stop you.

2.  Working on It (Confidence)

Everything is going to plan. The shading is perfect, the words are pure magic, the writing is classic and original. It’s gorgeous and your brain is your coach, telling you to press onward, work until your fingers grow numb, and reminding you why you’re doing this. The college you’ve always dreamed of, that prize money, it’s all shining like diamonds in your head, and you know you have the skills to take it all.

3. Everything Goes Wrong (Anxiety)

And just like that it all goes down the drain. You notice your grammar is terrible and you know you can do better. You notice a tiny line of color has gone out of line. You think of another idea to write about just as you’re finishing your current one. You contemplate redoing your entire submission as new ideas start to brew in your head. Cursing your brain, you’re wondering why they weren’t there before. Maybe those ideas would be better, maybe you weren’t paying attention; everything starts to crumble and you don’t know how to fix it. (Now would be a good time to take a break from your work and clear your head).

4. Editing (Self Doubt)

We are own worst critics, especially when it comes to editing. We judge ourselves too harshly and believe we can seek the advice of others. Most of the time it works, but sometimes they don’t see your vision.  Sure, we follow their advice, but we still hear our own nagging voices in our head. Fix that, that line sounds terrible, why is that colored weirdly, and while they seem encouraging, they actually doubt our skills. But of course, there is that small grasp of relief and joy that eventually blossoms when we realize that maybe our work isn’t so bad. That maybe after the harrowing experience, we still may have a shot. We edited all we could through the late nights and hours just before the deadline. Now it’s time to take the final step.

5. Submitting (Acceptance)

That’s it. You’ve done everything you could. You’ve written the best to your ability, you’ve drawn to the very brink of your sanity, and you have done everything possible to be as good as you can be.  As you enter your contact information and any other necessary data, your brain starts to bubble. What if it isn’t good enough, what if you aren’t good enough, what if you missed the objective completely, or what if you just overall failed?

Well, it’s okay if you did.

In our lives all we can do is our best. We push ourselves to produce better work and from it we learn more about ourselves. We learn what our style and approach to our craft is. We learn how far we are willing to go just to obtain that big college dream we’ve had since we were teenagers or how far we’re willing to force ourselves to be better than good; to be great, wonderful, fantastic.  We learn from our failures, we learn from what we did wrong, or what we should have done. It’s all a part of life’s wondrous journey and it’s completely normal.

There will always be someone out there who’s probably better and that’s okay. It means their life is different than yours; maybe they went to an advanced art school or devoted all their time to their work. And it’s okay, that’s who they chose to be. You cannot be them, but you can definitely try to be better in your own fashion, regardless of what you do.

So go ahead. Take a deep breath. Enter your submission and hit ‘submit’. You could gain what you so desired or you could fail, but either way, it’ll be a learning experience. May the best come your way and always fight to do better, be better, and be awesome.

Thanks for reading today’s entry. If you liked it, feel free to comment, share, and critique.

So tell me, what do you do to motivate yourself when it comes to your craft?