Hurried Submissions

At times, your editor has been found face-down on keyboard, eyes glazed, the sudden faint causing yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn to appear on the monitor. Was it the result of a seizure? No. A drug overdose? No again. Sudden attack with a baseball bat? No, no, no. So what was the culprit?

Hurried submissions. That's right--hurried submissions are enough to put the editor in a state of literary shock.

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When I edit hurried submissions, I sometimes feel like Jennifer Connelly in The Labyrinth. Confused and frightened, and often downright exasperated, I wander through a surreal maze with only strange, half-helpful characters to guide me. Hogwart speaks absolute nonsense, the worm in the wall uses run-on sentences only, and David Bowie, in skin-tight pants and makeup, rallies his Grammar Goblins around as they toss language rules to each other without care for their delicacy or value. Oh, yes . . . the Bog of Eternal Stench still stinks - it will just stain you and me both forever with the inability to use prepositions correctly.

And believe me, I can smell a hurried submission a mile away. The marks of a hurried submission are many, but unappealing sentence structure, dubious word choice, incorrect punctuation, shaky organization, and improper grammar play large roles in the fate of the hurried submission.

While it is true that Constant Content can be competitive because Private Requests are often met quickly by authors, this doesn't mean that writing more quickly will get you more sales because you "beat out the competition." On the contrary, writing submissions quickly without checking them carefully for mistakes can put you at a disadvantage. Not only are you at risk for rejection, which means that you end up waiting longer for review and approval, but the customer may hold out for better organized, more creative, and better-quality writing.

Careful, quality work that sets itself apart from the rest because it takes an original approach, is well-researched, and presents information clearly will always win out over the competition in the long run. If you haven't noticed, the customers at Constant Content are becoming ever more discerning, which means that your real competition comes in the form of writers who take their time and use their skills to their utmost ability.

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Don't put your editor in a state of shock with your hurried submissions. Take your time. Breathe, research, rework, and reword. Look up words, rules, or facts that you are unsure about. Take a different approach to the article that a dozen other authors are writing.

And please, if you get a rejection, this is your second chance to do what you should have done in the first place--go over your article with a fine-toothed writer's comb and eliminated any snags. Giving your article another 10 seconds of consideration will onlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

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