Michael Stanek’s Portfolio

Book Review: The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story is one of those non-fiction titles that has me hitting the “purchase” button on my kindle before I even read the first page. For one, I am a great admirer of Douglas Preston’s work—as a creator of both fiction and journalism. But on the other, very little fascinates me more than undiscovered locations and civilizations (both covered in this book). If you are looking for some creative non-fiction to occupy your time that is compelling and informative, please look no further. However, if you are still curious about what you are in for throughout a little more than 300 pages, read on!

This book covers expeditions that took place over more than twenty years—their goal: to investigate perhaps the most remote rainforest in the entire world located in Eastern Honduras. In this beyond dangerous rainforest, locals believed a lost city was located, a place known as La Cuidad Blanca (The White City). In this city, legend told that its people worshipped a giant monkey statue (hence the name City of the Monkey God). Many tried to find this place over several centuries, and many failed. Even the famed (and loathed) conquistador Hernán Cortés claimed to have heard of its existence and grandeur. However, it wasn’t until the expeditions this book covers that there was even proof of such a place existing. It does (the area was just covered in more than 500 years worth of jungle growth).

I’m not going to talk any more about what the book contains because the facts and history given by Preston are just fascinating. Lovers of nature, history, Central American culture, and archeology will be right at home here. However, I must say, enthusiasts of a good mystery might find something here as well. The book is easy to read, well-written, and nicely paced.

If I had to make one complaint, it would be that Preston goes a little off-topic later in the book on a subject that is relevant. However, I felt this pulled me away from the work’s focus, which is the lost city. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book to almost anyone with a curious mind.

A Writer’s Opinion on Audible by Amazon

Audiobooks gave me the courage to read. . . well, books. As many of you know, I was diagnosed with a profound case of Dyslexia at an early age. Also, as many of you know, I’m addicted to stories and storytelling. So you could see the dilemma I had when I was very young. I loved to read, but my Dyslexia made it a chore to the point where I wanted to give up. Reading chapters took me days, and eventually, I started telling myself it would be a miracle if I could finish a single paperback longer than 100 pages. That was, at least, until my eighth birthday.

I unwrapped the present with trembling hands. It was the early 2000s, and Harry Potter was all the rage. I knew that my grandparents had bought me what I’d asked them to get: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone—but the package felt different. Instead of being book-shaped and heavy, it consisted of a small, sturdy square. Doubt that I got what I’d wanted filled my mind as I started to unwrap and reveal what the Pokemon wrapping paper concealed. This has to be it, I thought to myself, this is the last present! As my small hands held the contents of the gift, my insides twisted with a mixture of excitement and confusion. The box was decorated with the now-iconic artwork of Harry Potter flying on his trusty Nimbus 2,000, but this wasn’t a book. Was it a mini-book?

“What is it, honey?” Asked my mother with a smile.

“Read what it is?” Said my dad from behind his new digital video camera. My eyes twisted with concentration as I read.

“Audiobook.” But I didn’t understand the concept.

“You listen to it!” Said my grandmother (a.k.a Nana). But I still didn’t understand the concept. They smiled at my inability to understand and ushered me to the CD player sitting on the bedside table in my room. My Mom fired-up the first installment, and I heard Jim Dale’s voice read the introductions to the book I wanted to experience more than anything. I was hooked.

Fast forward more than twenty years, and I’m getting ready to cross the country by car. I haven’t listened to an audiobook in more than a decade and am desperately looking for anything to keep me entertained on the long journey. Enter Audible.

I’d heard of the service but never used it—assuming that it wasn’t very affordable (anyone who has purchased an audiobook in the past knows they are costly). It turns out the service is very reasonable at $14.95 a month; however, newcomers can also try it free for 30 days. But after the free trial, would it still be worth it? I had that question answered for me when I learned how the Audible credit system works.

Every time Amazon accepts a monthly payment, the customer receives a credit. Each credit is good for redeeming any book in their massive library. Just use the credit, download the audio file, and you’re listening within minutes. Don’t like the book you chose? Return it, get the credit back, and use it on something else. Credits stay with you forever and stack. Do you have Amazon Prime? If you do, you will be receiving two credits a month instead of just one.

The Audible App is well-made, easy to use, and interfaces well with all my Bluetooth tech. During my drive, I experienced no bugs and almost listened my way through two whole books! Overall an excellent user experience with perfect UI. If I had to have one complaint, it would be that I found my stories unpausing themselves at certain moments, i.e., when I paused it to listen to directions and focus, etc.

Overall, I would recommend Audible to anyone looking to get into reading or tackle those challenging novels that break 1,000 pages. I don’t mean to sound condescending, but reading is becoming less and less important to people, and that makes me sad because I think we need reading now more than ever. I believe Audible is a service that helps keep creative endeavors in print alive while making them accessible to almost everyone. Without audiobooks, I might not be able to read as well as I do today. And for that, I am grateful.

Dealing with Rejection

A snippet of a list of publishers I’ve submitted to. The red highlights are rejections.

Rejection is a part of any successful life. If you want to take your path in a new direction, there will be people that say, “no!” You cannot avoid it. More importantly, you cannot let wanting to prevent it stop you from reaping the benefits of a fuller time on this Earth. Your mind will sabotage your future if you let it. Don’t. Put yourself out there, and eventually good things will come.

So what do you do? How do you get over it? Below I’m going to share two quick tricks I use to help me cope with the never-ending rejections that populate my Gmail Inbox.

Manage your expectations, and take the first step!

Statistics say that you’re probably going to fail in whatever you attempt the first time. Sounds cynical, doesn’t it? Well, that’s just how it is. As Tyler Durden said, “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.” When I first started sending my stories to publishers, I thought that I was a genius. I felt that I would be the next J.K. Rowling by 2030 and that my stories would get accepted in the first five to six submissions easily. I was wrong. Life served me a slice of humble pie, and the rejections came in like hotcakes.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t prepared for rejection. Many of my professors informed me that getting published was a numbers game and that the letters of rejection would be numerous. Deep down, that scared me, and it wasn’t until my second year of graduate school that I started sending my work out. I remember it took me two hours to click the “submit” button on my first application—the rejection came-in later that day.

But something strange happened. After I got that rejection email, I became numb (like the Linkin Park song). I stopped caring whether publishers liked my story or not and made a point of sending as many submissions out as possible. Most of them came back as rejections, but, eventually, one was an acceptance! And that was all I needed to get excited, and keep moving forward.

Collect your letters of rejection

Sounds crazy, I know, but keeping your letters of rejection in a folder of some sort is oddly satisfying. The more you get rejected, the less you care and realize that the sting you feel after reading that somebody didn’t like your work is entirely self-inflicted. I will often open the rejections folder I created in my email every few months and scroll down to the bottom. Each time I do it, it takes a little longer to scroll, and the longer it takes, the more satisfied I feel.

Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment (you have to be as an aspiring writer), but there’s something very empowering about turning something that I feared into something that brings satisfaction. It’s little victories like that that will mean the difference in you making it or giving up.

Writing When it’s Difficult

As I write this, the last thing I want to do is create a blog post. It’s late on Monday night, and I don’t feel like writing anything. Why? Because it’s late on a Monday night! As writers, we love creating and sharing those creations with the world. However, we also know all too well what it’s like to want to do anything but write. Some days you’re just not feeling it.

But some days you don’t have the luxury of taking time off. Maybe you have a deadline coming up in a few days. Or, you’re trying to meet a weekly goal. Whatever it may be, as adults in writing, taking a day off isn’t, and shouldn’t, always be an option. A wise person once said: “Writers write.” While that’s a great saying, I think the way it should go is: “Writers write, even when they don’t want to.”

Below I’m going to share a few tricks I use to get work done when it’s the last thing I want to do.

Write a little bit

If you don’t feel like writing anything, try and get a few hundred words down on the page. That’s it! You’d be surprised what that small amount of words could do towards your greater goal. Often, what I’ll do when I get an idea is write a little bit on the topic, i.e., an introductory paragraph or something on the subject I’m trying to develop.

Remember my post on beating writer’s block (if you haven’t, totally check it out)? Some of the info from that article comes into play here. How? When you write a few hundred words, you start something or continue an ongoing project. Regardless, you are taking something in a particular direction. However much you do, when you write, then stop—you give your mind a chance to think about things while you’re living life.

Next time you sit down to write, you will have thought about what to say next. You might’ve even done a little research on the topic itself! Whenever I use this method, I not only make progress, it often gets me out of areas in stories that I’d otherwise spend hours trying to brainstorm.

Try it! Make your starting goal 200 words.

Write in small bursts, and take breaks

Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of writing a little bit, then returning to it another day. Sometimes, a lot of times, we are under strict deadlines. If that’s the case, and your writing muscles don’t want to move—create in small bursts!

The idea here is to trick your brain into doing more than it thinks it is. Start by writing a sentence or two, then stepping away to go to the bathroom, have some water, etc. Come back and maybe write three more sentences—then take a break. Do some research on Google, have a snack, watch a video on Youtube! Keep doing this, and before you know it, you will have accomplished a lot.

Correct grammar and revise what you have!

When I’m unsure of where things are going in the middle of a novel I’m writing, I will go back and revise previous chapters. Why? Because accomplishing large tasks is about breaking them into smaller, more manageable achievements.

When you correct and revise stories (or anything really), your mind will often develop new ideas for future improvements in whatever you’re growing. I’ve come up with revisions that change the entire foundation of projects. Does that mean more work? Yes. But, when I make those changes and take my artwork in that new direction, it tends to be better, and I also always smash the segment I had so much trouble writing.

If you don’t know how to revise your work without outside help, start by questioning yourself! Is this character okay? Is that scene needed? Does this paragraph belong here? It would be best to ask yourself these questions because their answers will sometimes expose a weak link in your piece.

The Drink that Made Me a Better Writer

Before I say anything else, no, this recipe will not just change you into Ernest Hemingway. But what it will do, is help give you the body and mind needed to write at peak performance. What is this drink? It’s called a green alkaline smoothie.

Writing starts in the brain, and if you aren’t giving your body the nutrients it needs, your mental state will not be optimal for creating your best work. I’ve been drinking this smoothie for a while now, and I can say with confidence that it has improved my life. Not only do I feel better, but my skin is softer, my muscles don’t ache, and my joints don’t feel like the crumbling Berlin Wall. In short, I don’t understand how I was going about my life before I shoehorned this recipe into my daily routine.

Before we get started, I want to note that my original inspiration for this recipe came from Coach Corey Wayne’s work. He’s a self-help master and one of the reasons I’ve been able to move forward with my life in a positive way. If you’d like to see the original recipe, you can find it here.

Now let’s get started.

Important Note: Check with your doctor before use.

What you’ll need:

A Blendtec or Vitamix blender
30oz of filtered water
5oz of non-frozen spinach
Six dates
Six strawberries
A small handful of wheatgrass
Two to three ounces of Lacinato kale
One quartered Fuji apple
One large cucumber
One head of broccoli with the stem removed
One green bell pepper with the core and seeds removed
A handful of grape tomatoes (usually 10-12)
Six sprigs of celery
One heaping tablespoon of cinnamon
One heaping tablespoon of honey
Two heaping tablespoons of vanilla extract

Note: This recipe yields enough for four tall smoothies.

Directions

Fill your blender with 30 ounces of water, then add your dates and spinach.
Blend till reduced to thick green liquid. Note: Don’t pack the spinach in. Make sure it is loose, or the leaves won’t blend properly.
Add strawberries, cucumber(s), broccoli, and green bell pepper. Note: Cut the tops off your strawberries and cucumber(s). Cut the stem off of the head of broccoli. Remove the bell pepper’s core pepper by cutting off the top, and pull the contents out with your hands.
Add vanilla extract, honey, and cinnamon.
Blend this with the fruits and vegetables added in the previous step till they reach smoothy consistency.
Now we’re going to add the wheatgrass, apples, and grape tomatoes. Note: Make sure the apple is quartered, with the cores removed!
You know the drill. Blend!
Finally, we’re going to add the kale and celery sprigs.
Blend for a fair amount of time for ideal smoothness (make sure you let the motor take small breaks via ceasing the blend for a few seconds at a time), and you’re finished!

Why Blendtec and Vitamix?

The short answer is that these blenders have motors powerful enough to blend this quantity of ingredients. These are dense fruits and vegetables loaded with fiber and nutrients. While great for making basic protein shakes, cheaper brands like Ninja are not strong enough to blend all these ingredients into something easily consumed.

Blendtec and Vitamix offer, even in their cheapest models, machines that can handle demanding tasks. They are some of the most expensive blending products on the market, but for a reason—their power is unmatched by most brands.

Closing thoughts

I noticed the effects of this smoothie in my day to day life rather quickly. My mind felt clearer. My thoughts felt more potent and positive. Most importantly, my body started to feel like it did when I was in the best shape of my life (about three years ago).

From a writing standpoint, ideas come easier. I find that I have an effortless time getting a good flow going—it’s not uncommon for me to write a chapter in one sitting. Finally, I have more energy to just do more. I write more. Submit to publishers more. Stay up later, and sleep better! Any prolific writer will tell you that all of those things are important if you want to be genuinely excellent in the craft.

I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, or scientist (again, check with your physician before drinking this smoothie every day). I haven’t done a ton of research on what this smoothie does when it enters your system. I don’t understand the chemistry, and I certainly don’t understand the physiology. You’re welcome to consult real experts about this recipe and do your in-depth research. But what I know is that eating vegetables can be a huge pain, and eating them before they go bad can be even more annoying. One of these smoothie batches is enough for four days of fruits and vegetables. Four days of feeling healthy and enjoying the benefits of this fabulous concoction!

That’s something to think about.

Beating Writer’s Block

You are staring at a blank Word document until your eyes hurt, trying to figure out what to write.

“It has to be great,” you mumble to yourself. But it isn’t great, because it doesn’t exist. Suddenly your deadline looms in the distance, and you panic. You start to type, and you tell yourself that the finished product isn’t going to be good. So how does it turn out? Bad. We’ve all experienced the agony.

That agony is, as you probably know from the title of this post, writer’s block. You don’t have to be a writer to understand what it’s like to suffer from a lack of inspiration—we all experience it in every field. So what is writer’s block, and how does one overcome it? The answer is surprisingly simple.

Permit yourself to write badly

Fear of writing something terrible is the source of 90% of writer’s block. People tell themselves that what they put on the blank page has to be nothing short of excellent. Well, guess what? It won’t be remarkable—because it’s a rough draft. Nobody can write a perfect draft on their first try—those who say they do, are liars.

Accept the fact that what you write will be imperfect, and you will free yourself from the clutches of writer’s block. When you do that, you will come to see that it’s not a phenomenon but a state of mind. You can’t get started because you won’t allow yourself to get started.

Just start writing

Still don’t know what to write? Just start bashing-out sentences with your keyboard! Create something—anything! If it’s an assignment on a topic, write about that. The sentences don’t even have to relate to each other; however, they should connect to whatever you want your blank document to reflect once finished. When you start to write and let your mind flow and work-through ideas, you will see that something will begin to take shape.

Write however much you can, then stop! Look at what you’ve written over a page or two, and start to edit. Search for ideas, angles you can take, etc. Once you’ve done that, erase the useless stuff, and go from there.

True perfection comes from editing

Many people don’t seem to understand that editing and revision are what makes content genuinely great. This process allows you to make a bad first draft and turn it into something decent. Once you have that, your take that work, edit it again, and that good work becomes great work. Revise something enough times, with skill and understanding, and you could be looking at a masterpiece. But that masterpiece had to exist in a rough form first—because that’s how things are.

Humans have gotten to their place in the world as the top species via trial and error. We attempt something, learn from how it went badly, correct, and make the next attempt better. It would be best if you were approaching your written work the same way. Create something bad! Nobody is going to see it. Authors don’t send their first drafts to their publishers and demand that that be printed. No, the book you take off the shelf is there after a long, strenuous process of correcting and re-correcting. But that process was only able to happen because somebody somewhere permitted themselves to write a bad first draft. Somebody somewhere didn’t allow writer’s block to control them.

Book Review: The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth is a book that has been on my “must-read” list for quite some time. But, I must say, I was intimidated to pick it up, not because of its subject matter, but because of its length (more than 1,000 pages). While this historical novel is incredibly long, it does not feel that way. Why? Because it is a bonified page-turner.

While The Pillars of the Earth pushes 1,080 pages, the content is easily digestible for readers. This manageable digestion is because best-selling author Ken Follett breaks his content into sections that are very readable in small sittings—should busy readers choose to pick this book up for thirty, even fifteen, minutes at a time. If this work’s length intimidates you, don’t let it because chapters are manageable for all adult reader levels.

Now for the content of the book itself. As I said above, this is a real page-turner. Why? Follett introduces and resolves micro-conflicts within an over-arching story arc. There is rarely a dull moment in The Pillars of the Earth. No character is safe, and there is danger around every corner.

Speaking of characters, readers will find that they will become attached to them rather quickly. Fans of George R.R. Martin’s work will feel right at home here because the people that populate this story are fun to both love and hate. History buffs will also enjoy this because while the main cast of characters is fictional, the book deals with and depicts real historical figures such as King Stephen and Empress Matilda.

The setting of The Pillars of the Earth is excellent from both historical and artistic standpoints. The novel is set during early to mid 1,100 A.D., in an era of English history known as “The Anarchy.” Instability over the rightful monarch of England brings about a bloody civil war that lasts years. Rulers lost power, while others took their place. Among all this, the people of England were caught in the middle, suffering at the hands of skyrocketing criminal activity and a total breakdown of law and order—a direct result of the region’s instability. Caught within this power struggle is the beloved cast of characters that I described above.

Not only is this setting realistic, but it is also beautiful. Readers will feel transported to a time that seemed much more straightforward on the outside but was just as complicated as today—just for different reasons. During this journey, readers will experience the over-crowded narrow streets of English towns, be thrust into large-scale battles, and experience the dedicated toil behind what it took to build cathedrals at that time.

The Pillars of the Earth is a great read. If you’re looking for something to occupy your time, enrich your perspectives on world history while also just getting lost in a dense story—this is the book for you. It was one of the books I promised myself I would read before I die, and I’m glad I did.

Two Applications that will Change a Writer’s Life

I knew I should give it a shot, but I didn’t. I’m a writer, so why would I need help with grammar and story organization? I can do all of that myself for free. Well, it took a long time, but the true answer to that question came to me.

The fact of the matter was, I did need help with both of those things. Not because I was incapable of doing it, but because doing all of it myself, and correctly, took too much time. Content is king, and I wasn’t producing it fast enough. So, I swallowed my pride and researched applications that could make my job (and life) as a writer easier.

You wouldn’t think it, but finding the applications that work best for you, isn’t as easy as you might guess. There are hundreds of programs for writers, some free, some cheap, and some expensive. But what are the best and most important for helping you work smarter, not harder? This little post I put together should make that easier for you to determine.

Grammarly

Grammarly is your safety net. Your saving grace. The thing that allows you to sleep well at night, knowing that your content is well-worded and grammatically sound. I don’t care if you are a fiction writer just starting or a newspaper editor with more than thirty years of experience. If you work with words for a living, Grammarly needs to be on your computer’s dock!

Why is that? Isn’t spellcheck enough? No.

Any writer will be the first to admit that the most challenging material to edit—is their own. Once you create a new piece of writing, it’s almost as if a magical spell is cast on your eyes. The grammatical issues are there, but you can’t see them. Grammarly changes that weeding-out those harsh-sounding sentences and misuses of the English language—taking the paranoia away and letting you relax/move-on to that next critical piece of content.

Grammarly allows you to tailor the application to, well, you. Edit the way you want feedback to sound. Do you want it to be friendly and helpful? Or are you a glutton for punishment and want the program to sound like an angry editor? I don’t know why anyone would want that, but the option is there should you choose to utilize it.

Do you struggle with writing in the passive voice instead of the active? Grammarly notifies you of that too. It also helps you overcome that by having you figure out the change yourself.

Grammarly also evaluates your writing in clarity, correctness, engagement, delivery, as well as specific style guides should you select that. On top of that, content gets an overall score based on how all five categories’ standards are being met.

Overall, it’s a great application to have, especially if you don’t have the luxury of someone proficient in English to look over your work. Because let’s be honest, most everyone can read and write, but that doesn’t mean they have the skills to do it for a living.

Scrivener

Anyone that has tried to write an entire novel on Word knows that it is a nightmare. Not to knock that program, all writers need to have it, but let’s be honest here—the thing is clunky as hell. If you have a cumbersome book in the works and Word is making writing it that much harder, or if you’ve just got a massive document that needs structuring—Scrivener is here to help.

Developers Literature & Latte have finally created the perfect program for long-form wordsmiths. Scrivener is a word processor that makes writing and organization easier through a unique folder system.

Label folders with the names of chapters, sections, or sub-sections. Then fill them with written content. Drag folders to put them where you want to go or put folders within folders to create even more customization! Scrivener is all about organizing your content in a way that makes the most sense to you.

Need to keep track of characters? Scrivener provides awesome character sheet templates that you can populate with information on people—real or fictional. Need to keep track of a setting or place? Scrivener has templates for that too!

Set word goals. Label folders and documents with colors to determine if content needs to be revisited. Do all of the things you can do with Word, but better!

And when it’s all said and done, Scrivener can export your finished file into commonly used formats like docx—so there is a minimal hassle when it comes to taking the final steps toward submission.

Scrivener can do so much useful stuff for you as a writer; I cannot cover it all here on this post. However, I will be creating a guide for beginning writers to use while trying to figure it out.

Leap!

That’s it. These two applications will change your life for the better. Worry about grammar, wording, and style less. Stop wrestling with your current word processor to get that novel or long-form project organized! Throw-down the money, and save yourself a lifetime of struggle now. I promise you won’t regret it!

How to use Excel to get Published

As writers, we tend to ignore that green box icon included in our over-priced Microsoft Office Suite called Excel. It’s for mathematicians, over-worked college students, and engineers—right? Wrong.

Excel can and should be a significant asset to you during your quest to get published. When used correctly, it will keep you organized, let you keep track of publishers you’ve submitted to, and who rejected you. Most importantly, it will allow you to quickly find submission pages when the time comes to submit a new story.

So open-up excel, start a blank workbook, and let’s figure this out together!

Step 1: make space

What you’ll first see when starting a blank workbook is enough to make any writer panic (see image to the right). When I first used Excel after college, I was inundated with post-traumatic stress caused by general education mathematics courses I had to take (I know, I know—woe is me). But once you start getting organized, that stress will quickly dissolve. So let’s begin.

Before you start inserting information into the boxes and columns of your workbook, you’re going to want to create the space necessary for that information to be easily visible. Excel exists to hold incredible amounts of data. Therefore, content can disappear into a column if said content is too lengthy and invades the space of a neighboring column that is holding information (see the image to the right).

Image A

So what do we do? We’re going to want to stretch the columns until they are large enough to accommodate our publishers’ information. When you first open your Excel workbook, the columns will look small and cramped (see image A to the right).

Image B

If you look closely, there is a small line between each column. If you hover the mouse over that line, the cursor will become a vertical line with arrows pointing away from the said line. When you see that icon, click, hold that click and drag to make the column bigger. When the stretch is complete, the column should look more lengthy and willing to accommodate larger words/font sizes (see image B to the right).

And there you have it. Your columns are large enough to be labeled and organized!

Step 2: organization

This is the whole goal of using Excel workbooks to keep track of publishers. We start doing that by labeling our columns that we have extended at the top of the document. The labels I like to use are as follows:

Publishing House—This will be where you list the name of the publisher
Accepts Re-Prints—This will be a “Yes” or “No.” Recording this information will inform you of whether you can submit previously published work to these houses.
Date Submitted—The date you sent the publisher your manuscript. This will help give a timeline on their ability to get back to you with an answer.
Compensation—Do they pay? How much?
Link—The most important thing about recording these categories. Highlighting the link to their submissions page will streamline your search for publishers to submit to with different stories in the future.

Once you’ve labeled your columns, the spreadsheet should look something like this once you start to fill it with information (See image below). One more thing I recommend doing is making the font sizes in your columns bigger. This will make their information more comfortable to read because, let’s face it, submitting to publishers is frustrating enough.

Step 3: recording rejections

Nobody likes getting rejected, but that’s just what’s going to happen to you when you submit creative work to publishers. You. Will. Get. Rejected. It’s a part of life, and I promise you will become numb to it after the first couple of rejection emails roll-in. But to be organized, we have to label which publishers have said no. So what is the best way to do that?

The fill color tool icon: a paint bucket dumping its contents

The best way to label a rejection in Excel is with the Fill Color tool located in the Home category at the top of the Excel spread. But, before we do that, we will want to highlight the entire column of the publisher rejecting us.

We do that by hovering our cursor over the numbers lining the left edge of the Excel workbook. Once that is done, the cursor will become a black arrow—click to highlight the entire column!

A highlighted column

Once that column is highlighted, we will select our Fill Color tool, an icon of a bucket dumping paint. Keeping that column highlighted, we’re going to click the icon and see a full selection of colors we can use to highlight our rejection. I like to use red because it’s pretty much the universal color for all things negative. Once you’ve selected a color, the paint jug will display that color. Click the Fill Color display, and your entire highlighted column will become that color.

A highlighted column after the Fill Color tool is used

That’s all there is to it.

You’ve turned Excel into an asset. Stick with the submissions. Stay up to date with coloring your rejections, and good things will come eventually. As always, I’m here to help with useful tips, tricks, and advice until that time comes.

My Guide to Using Duotrope

You’re lost. You have a short story that you worked hard on, that your friends say is fantastic—but you don’t know the first thing about getting it published. Where do you go? What do you do? Who do you talk to? Google searches don’t yield much; you find some websites that publish stories—but they seem sketchy. Blog posts and articles give you some ideas, and you submit your work to a few places online. But finding those websites takes time, which you feel is being wasted, especially once the rejections roll-in like an unwelcome storm. You’re discouraged. You want to give up. If only there was a website that made finding publishers easier. There is! It’s called Duotrope.

What is Duotrope, and how does it work?

Duotrope is a website that allows you to search for publishers scattered across the internet. It works using a series of search filters that help the site determine a list of publishers that work best for your specific piece.

Once the search has commenced, you are taken to an alphabetized results page that shows you the most likely publishers interested in what you have to offer. Click on a publisher, and Duotrope takes you to an overview page that shows acceptance statistics, word count requirements the publisher is looking for, what stories they like to feature, etc. From there, you can make a choice on whether or not you want to submit to them.

Where do you start?

You start by selecting “Search for Publishers” under the “Search” tab in the top, lefthand corner of the Duotrope homepage. Once selected, the site will take you to a portal that provides filters that combine to create a highly customized search.

The most important search filters. Topic, however, is not mandatory to select

What the filter options look like when “Fiction” is already selected

Once on the “Search for Publishers Page,” your next step will consist of adjusting a series of filters that fit the story you want to send out. While there are more than twenty search filters to use, only a few are completely necessary: Genre, Style, and Length. But before you do any of that, you’re going to select what type of writing you are submitting. On the right side of the search page towards the top, an over-arching filter allows you to choose Poetry, Visual Arts, Non-Fiction, and Fiction.

Selecting a publisher

Once you have your search filters all figured out, you’re good to go! Click the “Search” button at the bottom of the page, and Duotrope will optimize an ideal list of publishers in alphabetical order tailored to what you want to submit. But what publishers do you click-on? The short answer is to read my blog post on who to submit to. However, when you click on a publisher, Duotrope will take you to a nifty page with their statistics, submission requirements, etc.

Submitting

Submitting is the part of the process that Duotrope doesn’t help with. You can think of the website as the Google of finding publishers for creative work—once you find the website, the rest is up to you.

What the link looks like

Under the publisher listing graphic (usually the cover art from the publisher’s most recent issue), a link says “Go to publication website.” This is the shortcut that will take you to, well, the publication’s website. Click on it!

Clicking on this link will turn your current Duotrope Page into the homepage of said publisher’s website. You are now at the mercy of their site and its user interface. Most good publications will have a link called “Submissions” or “Submit.” This is where you will find their specific guidelines on how to get them your creative work for consideration in future issues. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to find these submissions pages with publishers. What do I do when I encounter that? Move-on with my day and find somebody else to give my work to. Suppose they aren’t good at making it easy for authors to submit. In that case, chances are they aren’t good at showcasing creative work—which is the whole reason you are trying to get published in the first place!

Practice!

Sure, Duotrope has the user interface of a site made in 2003, but that’s alright! For five U.S. dollars a month, you save a considerable amount of precious time in exchange for expediting the future of your writing career. With time, the site’s quirks and strange search filters will become second-nature for navigation and use. You will come to find that it’s not about what the website looks like, but what it does. Because all it really needs to do is help you find that precious link to the next publisher you will submit to in that never-ending list. And it does do that rather well.

But in the meantime, my blog is here to help you out until you get to that point. Good luck! Stay strong! And happy submitting.