The Weekly Atticus (10/20/2018)

How to Win Our Flash Fiction Contest: Trust Your Gut | The Weekly Atticus

October 20, 2018

A recap of the week at Atticus Review, along with some extras.

Dear ,

Is it ready to send out? That’s the one question all writers/creative artists who make works they submit to publishers and festivals must (or at least should) ask themselves. And it’s a difficult, though essential, question.  I tend to think that first draft is pretty good, maybe even pretty damn good. Most likely because I’m proud of myself for having made anything at all. But experience has taught me one thing: Do not send it out yet! That satisfying feeling of having created something is not a reliable barometer of a work’s readiness for publication or whether it has fully expressed what you had wanted to say. To get a true sense for these things, I've found you need to put a little time and space between you and your creation.  This is why I always set a draft aside for days or weeks. When I return to it, I will see its obvious flaws. This is in keeping with what I’ve always stressed to my creative writing students, that a work is almost always improved and deepened by thoughtful revision. My own experience is proof—much of what I’ve published went through many drafts before it was accepted. But after many years of writing and making art, I’ve also learned something else: Sometimes, I actually do nail it the first time around. I’ll give the piece space and time, come back to it, and still feel like it’s doing and saying what I wanted it to do and say. There have been pieces I’ve labored over extensively that have never been taken, and things I’ve cranked out over a weekend that went on to become some of my best publications or most widely screened work.  How is this? Maybe it’s because 10,000 hours of experience and practice and failure have made it occasionally possible for us to become the Chinese brush painters who stare at the canvas for an hour before whisking the five strokes that say it all. I don’t know. What I do know is that sometimes my good results come through serious revision and sometimes they arrive through a spontaneous flow that gets me there the first time. But I think this discrepancy between serious revision and the golden draft has taught me a few things about when something is ready to be sent out:

  1. Give anything you’ve just finished some time and space before you submit.

  2. Try to be as objective as possible when you finally do return to that piece.

  3. Be ready and willing to revise.

  4. Know thyself. Be brutally honest. 

  5. In the end, go with your gut. If you think it’s ready, send it.  

So, if you've got some Flash Fiction sitting on your hard drive and all you're doing is moving commas and periods around, it might be time to send it! Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.Matt MullinsMixed Media Editor 

ATTICUS NEWS

EIGHT DAYS! EIGHT!  $500 BUCKS ON THE LINE.

Submission Deadline: 10.29.2018

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

BOOK REVIEW: CONVERSATION, INSTEAD OF MONOLOGUEA Review of WHY ART? by Eleanor DavisReview by Michelle Junot"The book is playful and funny while maintaining a serious control over content that wrestles with an age-old question: Why do we continue do this? Art transforms the viewer, but it also transforms the artist and our very world. It illustrates—quite literally—why we need artists and question-askers."READ ON

FICTION: SHE SINGS BEFORE THE SOCKby Samuel J. Adams"They all lived in a cold, old country where it was costly to produce socks for their proportions, so instead of buying two pairs the giants shared the one."READ ON

POETRY: NIGHTMAREby Anna Binkovitz"I am strapped to a surgical table. Auburn, naked, impossibly beautiful. A thousand hat pins bloom from the back of my throat. I can’t speak but still try to say I’m sorry to the surgeon."READ ON

CNF: DISPENSE NO ADVICEby Lori Wald"Recognize that it is impossible to understand what is going on in anyone else’s mind. Do not assume you know all the facts or any of the facts."READ ON

FILM REVIEW: First Man is #ProudtobeanAmericanA review of FIRST MAN from director Damien ChazelleReview by Emily Moeck "Josh Singer’s screenplay, adapted from James Hansen’s biography of the same name, dismantles the posterboy mascot of 1960’s American Greatness in favor of representing Neil Armstrong as the man he was—cold, calculating, and overwhelmingly reserved."READ ON

Atticus Review

 is happy to announce our first annual Videopoem Contest judged by Marie Craven.

First Prize: $300

Deadline: December 3rd, 2018

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