Writing and Publishing Fiction

Relics of Franklin's 1845 expedition, from the Illustrated London News, 1854

When I falter on my journey to publish some notable, award winning fiction that changes the world's understanding of the written word and alters the cultural landscape forever, I recall the 19^th century voyages of Sir Franklin Scott. He made it his mission to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic.

My Early Self-Indulgence Echo Chamber
photo by bitteroot

In politics, an echo chamber occurs when a community of like-minded individuals repeating a claim, which resonates as truth, since it amplifies beliefs already held by the echo chamber participants. In this intellectual utopia, you needn't be inconvenienced by criticism or evaluating new information. Similarly, successful writers with a significant body of work, often drift into self-indulgence.

How might Franz Kafka, today, with access to psychoactive medications rewrite his best known short story, The Metamorphosis? It might start something like this if he had also developed an appreciation for theories of web usability.

Inaccurate Humpty Dumpty (wearing belt rather than cravat)

To paraphrase Humpty Dumpty and end up saying something complete different: "How many rejection slips do you have plastered to your wall or stuck in a drawer under a pile of half-used post-it note pads?"

If alcoholics can rely on denial to get by, why not the unpublished writer?
photo by dpade1337

Hello, my name is unpublished guy, and I am an unpublished fiction writer. Hundreds of thousands of writers submit their short stories to literary journals and publications every year and only five percent are published. (Please note that statistics are half-baked and hardly substantiated.)