This very important how-to article is featured over on the MySpace Books page blog. Please do check it out (while you’re on the clock, of course), and for all of you who have a myspace page, be sure to leave a comment with your own ideas on how to get your holiday to-do list done on company time.
ToDo
I know Melba McMullin has been tirelessly working on putting this together for over a year — The Creative Bazaar, which will feature over 35 artists selling their creations. The event is happening from 11 am to 6 pm on Saturday, Oct. 13, at the Four Points by Sheraton Cape Cod (35 Scudder Ave., Hyannis, MA). If you are in the area, please be sure to check out and support the event. More details can be found here.
These are some things I’ve learned or thought about and found helpful during my own effort to bring my lunch to work. The tips are all fairly obvious, but seeing a collection of tips like this all in one place sometimes helps to force the issue and actually make a change. In this case, that would be to break out of the habit of going out to lunch everyday — spending more money than you should and eating more than you should — and start brown-bagging it, thereby saving some money and eating healthier. Here are the tips — please leave a comment with your bring your lunch to work ideas!
Pack it up the night before. The biggest downfall in terms of actually bringing a lunch to work is that you don’t have enough time in the morning to pack one up.
When you make your meals, plan extra portions so that you can bring them in for lunch the next day(s).
When you go shopping, make sure your shopping list includes items that you’d like to bring for lunch — sandwich meats, fruit, crackers, dried fruits, nuts, etc.
Not so great soup from the deli can cost $5 or more. A semi-decent can of soup from the store that cost $2 to $3 can be easily placed in a plastic container and brought to work. A quick zap in the microwave and you are good to go.
When all else fails, readymade frozen meals brought to work and heated up in the microwave will be cheaper than going out to lunch. They’re easy to pack, easy to prepare, and some can be quite tasty.
When you go out to eat, make sure you have the food left on your plate packed up — that’s right — leftovers, leftovers, leftovers. The food often tastes better the next day (or maybe it’s just because you’re having a not-uncommon bad day at work, and the taste of the leftovers triggers that happy feeling you had the night before when you were out on the town with friends, family or your significant other eating a meal at a nice restaurant).
Invest in good, easy to clean, compact containers that can be used over and over again.
Not just big containers, but little ones that you can put things like mustard or dressings in. That way, you can add these extras on at the right time, instead of doing it earlier and soggifying your lunch.
Use the tops of your containers as plates, instead of using wasteful paper plates.
Get a spork — a spoon, fork and knife in one handy, reusable eating utensil, so that you don’t need to bring in multiple utensils or use wasteful plastic forks, knives and spoons. (Thanks for that tip Heather Menicucci.)
If you have a sweet tooth, make sure to pack some healthy sweets (like raisons or dried apricots, things like that), so that you are not tempted to run out and get a donut or candy from the vending machines.
Give up soda completely — commit to drinking water. Not drinking soda really cuts down on the calories AND the cost of lunch. Plus, a can(s) of soda is a heavy item to lug all the way to work.
Don’t ONLY bring your lunch — treat yourself to a nice lunch at your favorite lunch place, or somewhere that you’ve been wanting to try, at least one day a week. Just like you can get tired of eating out all the time, you can also get tired of brown-bagging it day after day.
Wednesday is the optimal day to go out to lunch — breaks up the monotony of bringing your lunch right smack in the middle of the work week.
Make a point of not just eating your packed lunch sitting at your desk. On nice weather days, find a nice place outside to eat, and invite co-workers to join you. On bad weather days, eat in the community dining area, or order a coffee at a nice cafe and eat your lunch there. Donut shops are also a nice option, that is, if you can hold your order to just coffee and avoid feasting on all those glorious, delicious donuts treats.
Fruit is all-purpose lunch magic — easy to pack, no container necessary, and affordable. Plus, the sweetness of the various fruits — and there are so many to choose from — can serve as a desert, keeping you from giving in to your sweet tooth cravings or need for a soda. And one more thing: fruit works as an excellent, healthy, fulfilling snack — it can be eaten before lunch if your stomach is growling, or after lunch, during that long stretch between the lunch break and quitting time that is usually marred by a trip down to the vending machine or to the corner store for a candy bar or a (stale) cookie or something really awful like cardboard with frosting and sprinkles on top, otherwise known as Pop Tarts (yes, I admit it, I love those things — even when they’re untoasted and I am stone cold sober).
Use the community fridge in your office to store items that can help zest up your lunches — things like good mustard or salad dressing or salsa/hot sauce or even pita bread and hummus.
Keep a jar of peanut butter in your desk drawer for those days when you forget your lunch or just didn’t have time to pack up a good one. You can easily pick up some bread at any deli for not much money at all. The peanut butter can also come in handy if you need an (almost the) end of the day snack.
Have a cool bag to bring your lunch in — an extra non-essential (but not really) fashion incentive to bring your lunch to work.
If you’ve got bringing your lunch to work ideas/incentives, please leave a comment!
Think about joining the Brought My Lunch Flickr Group as an incentive to bring your lunch to work.
Faites de la Lumiere (Do your own light / light party).
Photogamer.com — “Photogames for people who click.” (Check out the flickr pool).
This is an age-old, time-honored tradition: Writing a novel on the man’s dollar. Yes, you can burn the midnight oil, or work on weekends, or take a few months off to pound out your tome, but there is nothing better than writing the words to that novel that may or may not become a bestseller and make you rich and famous while you’re supposed to be on the job. The lower level the job, the worse your boss is, the more deprave the conditions, the better your words, or at least the story of how your words came to the page, will be.
Plus, it should be noted that if you’re writing while on the job, you are technically being paid, albeit in a round-about, subversive way, for writing! That is no small feat. You are probably making more money off of your writing than most published authors.
Still, it’s not so easy to get writing done while you’re on the clock: there are all those urgent emails that pour into your inbox, urgent calls that light up your phone, and urgent requests from your boss to handle the various urgent issues that pop up throughout the day.
Why is it that in life, "urgent" means someone is in the hospital, but in the workplace, "urgent" ranges from "Meeting time changed" to "Need that report by EOD."?
Whatever… As long as YOU get what’s urgent in the workplace: getting work done on things that are near and dear to your heart: for you writers out there (and aren’t we all working on a novel these days, at least as far as the idea phase?), that would be your novel!
Here then, are some ways to write your novel while you’re on the clock:
1. Show up early and pound out some writing before the start of your day. Technically you’re not on the clock, but it’s a great habit to get into, especially if you have a truly demanding job where it’s hard to sneak in personal creative endeavors. Wait! Keep reading! Sacrilege, I know, to suggest that you show up early to work. But this really is an excellent way to get some writing done without interruption.
2. Or, when you do show up for work, right on time (or the usual few minutes after the official start of your working day), instead of checking your voice mail and email, and then surfing the news and gossip sites, commit to focusing completely on your writing for a solid half-hour. You’re fresh, and have yet to get sucked into or distracted by all the work-related crapola — red-flagged "urgent" emails, obnoxious voice mail messages from co-workers asking stupid questions (for like the third time), and just the usual tidal wave of stress that washes over you at the start of each working day.
Note: There is no better way to start the day than with a personal creative effort — it will juice you up, get your mind rolling, and instill energy that will help carry you through the day. If something crappy does happen during the work day, (and doesn’t something crappy always happen?), the stage you set in the morning will help you work through the negativity.
3. Just like you block off time for meetings and various work-related projects, like the overwhelming monthly report, for example, set aside specific times in your calendar to work on your novel. A half-hour every day, or an hour every other day. List it as "Top Priority Project: NVL" in your calendar. And just like you have to show up at that meeting or work on that report so as to finish it by the deadline, make sure you adhere to your schedule and work on your true "Top Priority Project" at the designated times.
4. Commit to writing a certain amount of words each day while at the office, be it 500 or 1,000 or more. Hold firm that you cannot leave the office until you have fulfilled your commitment. You’ll find a way to make the time — especially if you’re like most worker-bots and like to get the hell out of the office right at quitting time.
5. Just like smokers trying to quit throw a piece of gum in their mouth every time they feel the impulse to light up, every time you open up your browser to check out a gossip site or the blog you are currently addicted to, fire up your word processing program and pound out a paragraph or two of writing.
6. Dread meetings at work? Of course you do. Instead of re-running the Star Wars trilogy in your mind just to stay awake, jot down notes or bits of dialogue for your novel. If you can pull-off writing actual paragraphs in that kind of environment, with someone blathering on and on and on, the most annoying people in the room naturally doing most of the talking, the more power to you. Tip: Look up every once in a while and make eye contact with whoever it is that is talking. All your writing will look like you are simply taking copious meeting notes.
7. If you really, really hate your job, and you find yourself complaining to anyone who will listen, as well as making several calls a day to your significant other bitching and moaning about your sorry lot in life (not attractive!), you need to make a conscious decision to focus not on broadcasting your complaints but to writing your novel. Every time you feel the impulse to complain about most likely the same old shit, that should be the tripwire that sends you back to your desk to write. If you can pull this off, you will feel much better about yourself and your job (and people in the office, as well as your significant other, might actually want to talk to you again.)
8. If you are really focused on doing well at your job, and do indeed do a bang-up, kick-ass job, simply take that same standard for excellence and efficiency and find a way (while you are on the clock) to make it happen for your personal project as well: prioritize time to work on your novel, and when you are working on it, give the words you write the high-level attention to detail, originality and top-notch quality you would an important work-related project.
9. Take advantage of the lunch hour. Either find a quiet cafe and write in your journal, or write while you eat at your desk. Finding a cafe is preferable — gets you away from your ringing phone, incoming emails, people popping by to talk with you, not to mention that big old stack of papers that needs to be dealt with.
10. Incorporate events and characters from the workplace into your story. Annoying co-workers and your boss will certainly provide loads of ideas. Writing them into your story has the added benefit of helping you mentally deal with their shit in the real working world: you’ll find that taking the time to reveal the absurdities of your workplace in the form of the written word has a soothing effect — it provides a way to take a step back and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Plus, there’s that whole revenge thing: in the pages of your novel you can expose — in a no-holds-bar fashion — the idiotic and petty behavior of your terrible boss and lame co-workers to the reading public-at-large (or at least to the people in your office that you like).
11. When working on your novel, spread out paperwork all over your desk. It will look like you are really busy, and if people stop by to talk with you about something, you can just point to all the papers and say, "I can’t talk right now — I’m in deep." They’ll totally get it, and leave you alone to write.
12. Form a writing group with like-minded co-workers. Reserve a conference room each week and hold your workshop sessions right there during the middle of the work-day.
13. End your day with an allotted amount of time to write — say the last 15 minutes or so before quitting time. It will clear your headspace of the day-job baggage and put you in a writing frame-of-mind as you head out the door. It’s also a great way to reignite your energy level and find your second wind after a long day at work. You can then use that second wind to carry you home and continue with your writing efforts until it’s time to hit the sack and begin the work day, I mean novel-writing, anew.
Be sure to check out the Simple Things You Can Do Right Now to Jumpstart Your Writing Efforts, as well as the Not-To-Do List.
And be sure to also check out the Working For the Man Book:
Order now: Amazon
More details at workingfortheman.com.
Excellent post over at the Kiddley.com (a wonderful, creative resource for parents): Finding time to do stuff with your kids.
For the past few days here in NYC, it’s been terribly hot. It’s been that way all across the country. During this heat wave, I haven’t done a damn thing — except complain about the heat. Here are some "notes to self" on how to stay cool.
Try not to say "It’s so fuckin’ hot!" every three seconds.
Keep the ice cube trays filled, as well as a reserve bowl filled with ice.
Do not decide to ease the pain by drinking a beer or two. Or five.
Take a cool shower right before you decide to go to sleep.
Be naked as often as possible.
Keep as many lights off as possible.
Keep the curtains drawn during the day.
Enjoy the guilt-free sensation of NOT going for a run.
Change the cat litter more often than usual, so that your apartment does not reek of cat pee.
Don’t let the annoying weathermen on TV make you want to hurt people, or yourself, or the television.
Do not cook, or even think about quickly heating something up on the stove.
Do not kill your significant other when he/she decides to cook up all those vegetables from the Farmer’s Market because he/she doesn’t "want it all to go bad."
Make sure the fans are positioned in such a way so as to circulate the cold air from the air conditioner.
Have ice cold bottles of water at the ready to take whenever you have to leave the apartment/house.
Eat salads and sandwiches and fruit. And popsicles.
Have a ready supply of popsicles in the freezer.
Do not threaten bodily harm when your partner accidentally lets his/her leg touch your leg while in bed or while lying on the couch. Politely say, "This is a non-body-heat sharing zone" in a friendly, but stern voice.
Probably the single biggest obstacle to making projects is the simple excuse of not having enough time. "How do you expect me to make projects? I don’t even have time to do all the stuff that I HAVE to get done."
It’s true. That’s one way to look at it. Life gets in the way. Work. Family. Errands. Emergencies. Chores. Someone has to change the litter, make dinner, go to the store to pick up milk. You’ve got to bring home the bacon, and you’ve got to fry it up in the pan. Then you have to wash the dishes, and make sandwiches for the next day at lunch, and deal with the complaints about BLT sandwiches, again.
But just like you get all that stuff done — the way you’re able to hold down your job and run the household and remember birthdays and plan vacations and call about the newspaper that keeps not getting delivered and bring in your computer to get fixed and get the car an oil change on schedule — you can make time to start and complete projects.
If you really want to.
So that’s some simple advice to say that it can happen. Easier said than done, you say? It always is. Here then, are some basic, practical ways to make time for projects-making.
Turn off the television. This is the biggest time magnet of all. You flip it on in the morning to check out the weather, or the traffic, or just to have a little background noise. You turn it on while you cook, or maybe while you eat dinner. You want to catch the news. There’s a new show you’ve been wanting to check out, or you have to see the show you’ve been a fan of for years. Then there’s the news at 11, and then Nightline or Leno or Letterman. Is turning off the television the last thing you do before turning out the light and hitting the sack? Hour upon hour, every darn day, your television is burning up your spare moments. Turn it off and keep it off. You just bought yourself some serious project time.
Get rid of cable. That way, even if you do turn on the television — admittedly, we all need a little down time in front of the boob tube — there aren’t so many options to suck us in and keep us clicking on the remote. It just makes it easier to shut if off if there are only a few channels to choose from, instead of all those endless choices that cable offers.
Limit the time you surf the web. I’m all for checking out cool websites. But one click leads to another, and another, and so on and so forth, and when you finally look up from the computer screen, several hours have passed you right on by.
Stop wasting time reading those silly celebrity and fashion magazines. PR spin, paparazzi shots and gossip collide in an attempt, I think, to instill the idea that our own normal lives are simply inadequate. Total BS. Do we really need to know the sordid and/or PR-cleansed details about Britney and Ben and Christina and whoever happens to be the reigning throwaway king and queen of the reality television this particular week? No, we don’t. It’s that simple.
Schedule in time for projects. Sometimes it’s as easy as taking a look at the schedule book and marking off time for your project. Just like at the office, when you schedule meetings or training sessions or block off time to complete a major report, if you fill in open slots with your project in mind, you will instill a regimented sensibility into your project-making routine.
Incorporate projects into other things that have to get done. Instead of just sitting there reading a magazine while you do the laundry at the laundry mat, use that time to make a project. Or, instead of just making dinner and serving it up, start documenting the process with your camera, or collecting the recipes you use in a booklet, with stories about what happens during the meals at your kitchen table, a sort of culinary diary.
Prioritize project-making just like you prioritize the fact that you have to eat. Don’t simply relegate project making to the status of a recreational activity you partake in when all of your other tasks have been completed — after the dishes are done, the car is washed, the lawn mowed, all the phone calls returned, and the burned out bulb in the garage is changed… As you can see, the list of things that need to get done never, ever ends. So fit project-making in there, somewhere. There is time for projects, if you make a point of making the time.
Wake up an hour earlier than you normally do, and work on your projects then. Being productive from the moment you roll out of bed is a great way to start out the day.
Use your lunch break at work for project-making. This is either a good solid hour or half-hour to do as you please. Instead of surfing the web or reading the paper or your book, or going and spending money that you don’t have on $10 lunches with co-workers that you don’t particularly like that much anyway, use this time to work on your project.
Do your project on company-time. Why the heck not? Sneak in some time while you’re on the clock. Do you know how many novels, screenplays, plays and more have been written on the job? This is an old tradition. The main issue here is not to get caught. Don’t miss deadlines. Get your "work" work done, of course. But factor in some time here and there to work on your project. You’d be surprised how much time there really is in an 8-hour work day to find time for yourself if you plan things out and work efficiently.
Involve your kids. Surely between work and managing the household, keeping the kids fed, safe, clean, and occupied is where all your time is spent. So create projects in which they are either the subject, helping you out, or collaborating with you.
Incorporate your schoolwork into the projects. Create projects that are simply extensions of the various homework assignments you have to complete — term papers or research, books that you have to read, words or history lessons that you have to memorize. Building personal projects around school work doesn’t just allow you to make projects, but might make doing the homework seem a bit less painful.
Change one habit that eats up a consistent amount of your time on a regular basis. Stop watching a soap, waking up late, surfing the web for nothing in particular, renting a movie every single night of the week, staying up just to watch the sport recaps of games for which you already know the final score. By taking this one habit out of the equation, you can open up your schedule for more inspiring, productive project-making time.
Instead of talking and talking and talking about your project idea, just get to work. Procrastination is a huge time magnet, and it sucks up a lot of energy. It also breeds negativity, and lets your mind wander into the mine field of dangerous rationales for avoiding the project, such as finding all kinds of excuses as to why you can’t get started, or all the materials that you’re lacking and don’t have access to, or the fear that you won’t do a good job. Just shut up and get to work. The momentum you create just by getting started will move you up and over the challenges that you might be confronted with as you make your project.
Here’s a project: make a list of all the stuff you always have to get done, and how long it takes you to do it all. Document your time. Not just your work schedule, or your monthly calendar, but how you spend your minutes during the day. How long does all this stuff really take? How much time do you spend spinning your own wheels, either sorting out what to do next, worrying about what’s not getting done, or fretting that you don’t have enough time to make anything happen? Write it all down. Next, write down all the things you want to do: All the things you feel you never have enough time to actually get started on and fully sink yourself into. Once it’s all written out, spend some time thinking about how you can strike a better balance between the items on the two lists. Be sure to make the things you want to do a part of what has to get done.
See also the Not-To-Do List.
"Making Time For Project-Making" is an excerpt from the 52 Projects book.
by Jeffrey Yamaguchi
Stop talking about your novel or short story ideas and start writing. Get in the habit of writing for at least an hour every day, no matter what. One strategy is to get up an hour earlier than you have to, make yourself a cup of coffee and completely focus on your writing. Not only will your mind be fresh, but you won’t be distracted by phone calls, prime time television or a visit from a friend. The main idea here is to make writing part of your daily regimen. If you can figure out a way to carve out an hour of writing while you’re on the clock, then go for it, because technically that means you’re getting paid for your writing efforts (something that’s not so easy). And of course in the evenings, instead of watching television, flip on the computer and write for an hour. After a long day at work, sometimes you just feel too tired, but if you plant yourself in your seat and start typing, after a few minutes, you’ll almost certainly hit a stride and find yourself feeling a burst of energy. It’s the hurdle of actually making time and getting started that might keep you from writing, and that’s why making it a habit is so important. It becomes not a question of "if" you are going to get some writing done, but "when" you are going to get your writing done.
Join or form a writing group. This gives you an opportunity to get your work critiqued, an incentive to complete and improve your writing, an outlet to commiserate and celebrate with fellow writers, a place to learn and experience different kinds of writing styles, and a source to both find and give inspiration.
Start submitting your stories to literary journals and magazines (both online and print). But before you start sending off those emails and sealing those envelopes, unleashing a continual tidal wave of mass-mailings to all the journals listed in Literary Market Place, found through online research, or listed in the back pages of Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers, become familiar with the multitude of literary journals being published both online and in print. Create some form of database with contact information, submission requirements, publishing schedule and theme issues, and most importantly, the kind of writing the publication publishes. Once you’ve organized your research, then you can start submitting stories on a regular basis to the APPROPRIATE journals and magazines. Submissions that do not meet a journal’s specific basic requirements are despised by editors, and it’s a waste of your time and energy. Be smart and efficient about the way your submit your work.
Also: no doubt you’ll be able to remember which stories get published, but be sure to keep track of which stories have been rejected by which journals.
There are all kinds of ways to find out about literary journals — online research, writing resource/guide books, library research, word-of-mouth, bookstore browsing. You can spend all your time clicking from one online resource to the next finding out about yet another literary journal. How do you decide which ones to submit to? Well, first off, I don’t think you should be submitting to a journal unless you’ve actually bought a copy and read it. Don’t just look up the submission requirements, and send off your story. My advice is to do broad research, and to really get to know as many journals as you can. Which journal blows you away? What online literary site do you make a point of reading each week? Which journals are publishing the kind of writing that you respond to? Those are the journals you should be aspiring to get published in.
One nice sort of cheat sheet trick to finding out about cool new literary journals is to look at the bios of published authors and contributors to literary journals that you like.
Keep in mind that getting published in the major, well-known journals and magazines (like The New Yorker) is like winning the lottery. It’s not impossible, of course, but be sure to submit to smaller, less monumental journals and magazines that you have a better shot of getting published in, especially if you’re just starting out.
Enter contests. Winning a contest is a great way to get your name out there and get noticed by either an agent or publisher. There are all kinds of contests out there. The higher the profile of the contest, the more cache a win, runner-up placement or honorable mention will have. (Of course the higher the profile, the more competitive the contest will be.) Keep in mind that all contests have very specific guidelines, and many have a $5 to $15 entry fee, so before you send out your best short story to every contest you come across, make sure you read the fine print. Again, do your research and create a database with deadlines, submission guidelines, addresses, entry fees, and of course, prize money. And be sure to budget a certain amount of money for contest entry fees — set a limit for yourself. There comes a point where you might start to feel down if you keep spending money to enter contests, only to get the form letter with a list of winners that does not include your name. You can start to like all your writing efforts are pointless, and having to pay for the privilege just makes you feel even worse. By allocating a certain amount of money, say $100 a year, I think that helps manage the expectations — You’re still taking the chance to enter contests, but doing so in a controlled, positive and responsible way.
No doubt you would figure all this out during the course of your research, but here are some excellent places to find an abundance of information about journals and contests: Literary Market Place (available in the reference section at your library); Writer’s Market; Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market; The Complete Guide to Literary Contests; The O. Henry Prize Stories; and The Best American Short Stories. Also, check out Writer’s Digest, The Writer Magazine, and Poets & Writers. And here is a comprehensive list of literary magazines.
Begin your education of the book publishing industry. Figure out which publishing houses publish the style of writing you are producing. Research the names of editors that are behind the kinds of books you wish you had written. Follow the trends and stay abreast of who’s who on the inside of the industry. This kind of information will give you an edge when you have a body of work worthy of getting published. A good book to get a hold of for this kind of information is the Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers and Literary Agents by Jeff Herman. Also, check out Publishers Weekly Online, the website of the publishing industry’s main trade magazine. And definitely sign up for the electronic newsletter Publishers Lunch, which sums up and provides links (as well as biting commentary) to the most important publishing news and deals of the day.
Take part in online writing prompt projects to fuel your ideas and get you engaged in creative writing exercises, things like Sunday Scribblings and Poetry Thursday.
Always carry a pen and a journal around with you, to capture thoes fleeting "brilliant" ideas coursing through your mind, as well as to note down funny bits of dialogue, real or imagined. Chances are that if you don’t write it down right then and there, you’ll forget it completely, or not be able to recall exactly what was so perfect about it in the moment. Check out Moleskinerie for total journaling inspiration.
Instead of grabbing fast food or an overpriced sandwich and then bringing it back to your desk to scarf it down while you surf the web, make a point of getting some writing done during your lunch break at work. Find a nice cafe or place where you can sit at a table (free from emails, phone calls and co-worker banter) and simply knock out a page or two of writing on your laptop or in a notebook.
Read constantly. Fiction, non-fiction, and the occasional book on writing, such as Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might by Path Walsh, and Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction by Charles Baxter.
Look for writer resources online, sites like SlushPile.net and Flogging the Quill. A list of resource links is here.
Enroll in writing courses. Anytime you’re taking a class, you are forced to write. Not only that, but people other than your significant other will critique your work. And similar to being a part of a writing group, you will have the opportunity to meet other writers and read their work.
Cultivate relationships. Go to readings. Go to events for literary journals. Go to writing conferences. Meet other writers. Correspond with bloggers who write about writing. Ask questions, but be sure to share the information you gather.
Look to the web. The web is full of literary journals, and many print journals have an online component. And whereas print journals move at a very slow pace (sometimes a year just to hear your story has been rejected), online journals (or print journals with very active online components) reject and accept and publish on a much faster schedule. The prestige factor is still higher for print journals, and yes, there is something amazing about seeing your words printed on paper in a beautiful package, but online journals are fast gaining strong reputations and doing much more innovative stuff, because they can operate more cheaply, move faster and be read by much bigger audiences. Following are some literary journals that regularly feature work on their websites that you should check out: Quick Fiction; Pindeldyboz; Small Spiral Notebook; Word Riot; and eyeshot.net. And by all means, do your own searches. New things are popping up on the internet everyday.