Submissions are the logical next step

After reading Jen Campbell's blog  it's occured to me that with all this novel writing malarky - and prior to that, some novellas which took up a lot of time - I've stopped submitting short stories to magazines. I still enter competitions, which - if you win - takes care of actually earning some money, but there was a time when I knew which were the best magazines to submit to, submitted prolifically, and I got a fair number published.

Now, I have no idea.

I think I stopped submitting regularly when every third new website seemed to be a literary journal of sorts. I've never been all that comfortable with online publishing, and it just seemed as though quantity was more important than quality - the choice was overwhelming. I've probably mentioned this aversion before, and I know the reasons seem very lame. The biggest reason is that I'm a set-in-my-ways 30-something, and I like holding magazines and books in my hand. It gives me much greater pleasure to see my name printed on a page than on a screen... because (another lame reason) I can write my own name on a screen!!

Seeing my work laid out on paper, properly type-set, with an illustration or two, just seems proper. But, after reading Jen's post about all the stories she's having published imminently, I feel like I'm being left behind. So, my mission, set in stone here today (albeit a bloggy stone) is to submit work to magazines again.

Now, all I have to do is work out which ones.