My Magazine Article

So here's how my Thanksgiving vacation goes. Beforehand I vow that I will work on getting my magazine article published while I'm home. Once home, I get caught up in playing the Sims. I tell myself that I will begin work on it on Friday. On Thursday evening my hard drive, which has the article and everything on it, dies.

My data isn't lost, I have a back up drive, and I backed up my hard drive a couple days before I left to go home. My mentor acted like backing up was unnecessary. She was wrong.

Some people might have gotten mad in my situation, but I didn't. I thought, maybe this is a sign. A sign that I shouldn't be trying to get it published just yet.

See, I have a plan. The first step is to get published in a major magazine. It has to be a major magazine, though if that doesn't work I will settle for a smaller magazine. But the bigger the magazine the better. I've read that if you get something published in a major magazine it's not uncommon for literary agents to approach you. And that is the goal. Even if they don't, I could mention in my query letter that I was published in a big magazine.

It seems like a long shot. But let me tell you something, I've read the two-minute memoir section of Psychology Today (the section and magazine I have my eye on). My article is better than any I have seen in that section, in my opinion. I don't know how well I'm able to judge my own writing, but I feel that my article is better written than pretty much all of my blogs and the majority of my book. And people tell me that that stuff is well written.

Now, on my blog I've made it clear that I think there's more to my condition than a mental illness. But the article is written as though it were just a mental illness, though I do mention I was never convinced that it was just that and that's what leaves the door open for more delusional thinking. What I mean is, I say that but I don't try to argue that it is more than a mental illness, I actually assume that the reader will assume that that belief is part of my illness. I describe a day where I'm a bit caffeinated, and I'm walking outside and for a few moments I get wrapped up in an episode of delusional thinking, where I briefly entertain the idea that I'm the second coming. The article is meant to be both informative about the way delusional people think and a bit humorous.

I've spent time on this one writing message board posting sample query letters in such, and I've learned that people seem interested in the Jesus delusion. It's a common delusion, but not a lot is written from the perspective of someone who actually had the delusion.

But anyway, the hard drive incident had made me decide to wait until the end of the holiday season to try and get published. My dad's going to have to pay for a membership to Writer's Market (it's relatively inexpensive), which should provide me with guidelines and information for how to submit to magazines and what magazines to submit to.