✏️🛠️ How to Get Your Sh*t Together: The Insider’s Guide to Organizing Your Writing, From Pitch to Publish

Whether you’re trying to keep track of your article pitches or organize a plethora of research for a book, the key is to find simple methods that work for you.

Photo by Charlotte Gonzalez

Today’s special post is from Narratively contributing editor Shawna Kenney, who will host the March 6 Narratively Academy seminar, The Insider’s Guide to Pitching Top Publications. 

I have a folder in a file cabinet full of writing rejections from the early ’90s. Yes, they are actual letters, printed on letterhead from prestigious regional and national outlets. This is not an exercise in self-flagellation, but rather a reminder of my efforts. I started publishing back in the pre-internet days, sending typewritten pitch letters to names found on mastheads, and mailing them out via U.S.P.S. — with a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) enclosed, of course. If an editor wanted to work with me, they would often call — yes, on the phone! using a landline most likely! — after receiving my pitch. But one could wait for months before receiving the dreaded rejection envelope.

Today it’s so much easier with email. I hear from editors within weeks, days or sometimes even minutes. Occasionally I get ghosted, but that comes with the territory. After years of practice, my pitches are more often met with acceptance or at least an interest in reshaping an idea for publication. Of course I still get rejections, but they don’t bother me as much now.

It wasn’t always this way. 

After hearing about then-New York Times reporter Amy O’Leary’s “Throw Like a Girl” panel held in 2012 on gender differences in pitching and following up with editors, I recognized myself in the depressing observations. Amy had wondered why she’d painstakingly refined all her pitches as a young freelancer, while her male peers had almost casually tossed off pitches with ease. One later survey illustrated that many editors said women became more hesitant to pitch after a story idea was rejected, while men tended to follow up with new story ideas, often unprompted. I cringed with self-awareness. I looked back at some of those paper rejections: “I can’t consider this because we just ran something similar… but why don’t you think up some other angles for other bands?” one editor wrote. Ugh. Why hadn’t I?