Finding out that some acceptances aren’t exactly like what I’d been hoping for, I still was happy with it.
For my A to Z Blog Challenge, I’m trying to go back to some old pieces I’ve written and doing the good ole environmental thing. You know….the 3 R’s – reduce, reuse, recycle. I’m “recycling” some old posts where I can share here, saving me some time for the packing that I need to be doing instead of writing.
This essay I’d written shares about the two pieces I’ve had accepted at Chicken Soup for the Soul, and how it ended up getting me in three of their books, even though the third one wasn’t exactly the way I was hoping for.
That Wasn’t Exactly What I Meant
April 17, 2022
Four days ago, I received some news that I’d been waiting for from Chicken Soup for the Soul. Although, it wasn’t exactly the news I was hoping for.
After my second acceptance for a Chicken Soup for the Soul book (Seventeen Words in BE YOU), I had a new mantra. ‘I’m ready for Number Three! I’m ready for Number Three! I’m ready for Number Three!’
By now I had a few Facebook author friends that had Chicken Soup stories in twenty to thirty books a piece. I’d even seen a few that had two stories accepted in one book. I knew it was possible. To paraphrase a great leader, I had a dream. I was ready for my third acceptance.
Although, truth be told, that’s only the next step. My true goal is to reach that 20+ stories level. Especially since in the past few months I learned that a third author friend has hit the twenty Chicken Soup books mark.
I knew that to receive more acceptances, I’d have to start submitting more pieces. So, I ramped up my submissions.
In the previous five years, I’d only submitted from one to five essays a year.
What I didn’t realize until I went back through my Query and Submissions spreadsheet, was that the very first essay I submitted was accepted. But because there was over a year time lag, I didn’t pick up on that fact until now.
In March 2015 I submitted my first piece to Chicken Soup – Every Day is a Good Day. That was the year I was I trying to make a living from writing full time. That year, I ended up with 97 queries/submissions. I haven’t matched that number since.
But because I didn’t get a response, I kept going with other pieces and other markets and never did submit anything else to Chicken Soup. In 2015, that was the only thing I sent it.
I didn’t get an acceptance until May 2016. Now that I know how fast their acceptances usually are after a deadline, I’m curious about the year plus lag. But I suppose I’ll never know why.
After that first acceptance, I sent a few more. 2016:2, 2017:4, 2018:5, 2019:3.
In January 2020, I wrote another essay – Seventeen Words. When I got an acceptance the next month, the fever hit me. I knew I wanted a third one. I ended up writing and submitting 14 essays that year.
Unfortunately, COVID delayed the publication of the second book. It was originally slated for a May 2020 release. But when the nation – and much of the world – shut down due to COVID, it was delayed until May 2021.
That didn’t slow me down. I was a girl on a mission. I wanted to be in a third Chicken Soup book.
All to the sound of crickets.
That third acceptance was taking its sweet time. How was I ever going to make it to my goal of #10, #15, or #20 when I couldn’t even get #3?
Then, four days ago, I came home to two emails from Chicken Soup!
I passed by all the other emails sitting in line and went directly to the first one.
I am writing to you with exciting news today. We are publishing a special book on June 7th, about what we view as the 10 keys to happiness. Your story “Seventeen Words” was chosen from our library of past books to be included in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Your 10 Keys to Happiness.
But…that story was already accepted. What they went on to explain was that this would be a reprint and I’d receive one free copy of the book. Meaning…no extra $200 check, which is the biggest reason for this goal. I went to the next email to read it.
I am writing to you with exciting news today. We are publishing a special book on June 7th, about what we view as the 10 keys to happiness. Your story “Every Day Is a Good Day” was chosen from our library of past books to be included in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Your 10 Keys to Happiness.
Sigh…same thing. Same offer. But – if I agreed to participate in promotion for the new book, they’d send me 10 copies of the book. I don’t know if that’s 10 copies for each story, or 10 copies in total. Either way, of course I emailed back immediately that I’m on board to help promote and they could count me in.
So now I’m thinking – but Chicken Soup… this isn’t exactly what I meant! When I wanted in a third book, I wanted in with a new story – and a new $200 check!
I’m thinking I need to clarify my goals and intentions more clearly.
But you know, after thinking about it, I’m not all that disappointed. Yes, I’d rather have the nice check that goes along with their acceptances. But, thinking about how many stories that they have to choose from, and they ended up choosing two of my stories to be in a book of 101 stories. Why, I’ll be 1/50th of the book!
That’s still an honor.
There’s no extra cash to deposit. But there’s still a lot of notoriety coming my way for this feat. Especially when I go to my writer’s group where I believe I’m the only one with a Chicken Soup acceptance. And now I’ll have a third book to share and wave about – even though it’s the same two stories that they’ve already used of mine.
I posted on Facebook about this, and I think this post has more likes and comments and ‘Congratulations’ that any other post I’ve had. So, you know, in a way I’m feeling like a bit of a celebrity – even though I haven’t made it out of the single-digit-acceptances yet.
Now comes the true test of a writer – to continue on submitting, to keep those submissions in the double-digit numbers every year instead of one, two, or three a year.
And besides, it gives me something to write about here, in this book of essays about my writing journey!
Author note: Well, here it is two years after I wrote the essay above – and I still don’t have my next acceptance from Chicken Soup yet. Although…now that I’m thinking about it, that was my third book I was in. So technically, that’s #3. Maybe I should have reworded my new mantra. I was saying I wanted acceptance #3 – and I got it. I actually got #3 and #4, for the same book, with no new checks. Maybe that checked that #3 mantra off as ‘done.’ I think I’ll be reworking my mantra with some new wording!