Submitter’s Remorse

You know the scenario. We’ve all been there. You’ve worked and worked on a page for submission to a magazine for a contest or page call. You’ve considered many different options for layout and supplies and it’s been through numerous edits and changes. Finally, there is nothing more to be done. You look at it and think, “I have created a masterpiece.” The project is complete. You scan or copy it, compile your supply list and send it off, counting the minutes until calls go out because you are just sure that “They will love this one!”

Then the next day, you see it still sitting on your desk waiting to be filed away in an album. You look at it and think, “I did very well with that one. I really like it.” Then you file it away. Then a week or two later you flip through your album looking for something and see the page again. You think to yourself, “That’s an alright page. I hope it has a shot.” Then another couple of weeks goes by and the date approaches for the magazine or contest to make their selections known. You look back over your submission while you are counting the minutes and monitoring three different bulletin boards for any news of calls being made. And you think, “I don’t know….I hope this page has a shot. There’s something just not right about it.”

Then calls go out. And you didn’t get one, again. And you get your page back out to post in an online gallery to share with your scrapbook friends. And you look at it and think, “What was I doing, sending this in? It’s average at best. The whole thing is out of balance or needs a mat on that photo” or whatever “glaring” fault you now see wrong with it……

So is there really something wrong with the page, or are you just second-guessing yourself during the stress of waiting and rejection? I’ve started trying to finish my submissions sooner before the deadlines to let them sit and see if I determine they need any changes. So far, that system hasn’t resulted in any changes! My pages still get sent off in a happy glow of thinking, “They are going to love this!”I have made a couple of small changes (added a photo mat or inked some edges) to a few layouts that have been rejected and re-submitted them, but so far with no success.

Judging by the posts I see on scrapbook message boards, almost everyone who submits layouts goes through this process in some way or another as the insecurity sets in after a layout is submitted and we spend an interminable time waiting for the verdict on it. Is there any way to avoid it? Probably not, unless you have an ego the size of the galaxy. You can’t not care about the magazine’s opinion or you wouldn’t be submitting.

So what’s the solution? So far for me it is to try to remember why I am scrapbooking in the first place – to create a legacy for my daughter to have a record of her childhood and her family. It would be nice if the magazines published me and I won contests, but the bottom line is that I love playing with photos and paper and my daughter will always have the results as part of my legacy to her. And that’s a treasure that I can’t let submitter’s remorse take away from me or from her.