At Clarion, Cory Doctorow said, “Resist the temptation to think like a dandelion.”
(At least I hope I got him quoted right in my wee notebook.) The line I have written under that is: “The cost of reproduction is zero! Spread!” Being Cory, he might have been talking about electronic media, but for the purpose of this blog post, I’m going to interpret:
Thinking Like a Dandelion: The habit of throwing as many submissions out into the world as you can, the theory being that each story is a ticket in the great publication lottery.
It makes sense that carpet-bombing publications with your crappy first drafts would not advance your career. “Oh, not another Marie story! That’s my fifth this week!”
I want to do as my teachers tell me. I don’t want to think like a dandelion. But… I think like a dandelion. (I know, you are completely shocked, what with all my posts about rejection counts and writing fifty stories for the write-a-thon.)
Biologically, species approach reproductive success in different ways, but there can definitely be said to be a divide between Team Spread and Team Nurture. Dandelions, most fish and insects, they produce tons of offspring, the majority of which will not survive. The opposite would be those species, like elephants, that have only one child at a time and carefully nurture it a long time to ensure its survival.
I’d love to be a Dandelephant, and produce many high-quality seeds… er, stories… but in reality you only have so much energy to spend and you have to choose to spend it nurturing your one story or banging out 50 drafts.
I almost always choose to bang out drafts. First drafts are fun. They are exactly like dandelions – wild, carefree, and annoying. (Sorry, slush readers.)
How am I successful at all? I suppose what I really do is bang out dandelion seeds, then catch a promising one, and nurture it, and turn it into an elephant.
And every draft, I’m thinking: Please, please be my elephant.
But they’re mostly dandelions.
(Apropos of nothing, 19 rejections since last acceptance.)
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