Jane Yolen is known for coining the acronym BIC (butt in chair) with the sage advice to keep the posterior planted in the chair and write. Wise and useful advice indeed. In my case, however, writing is not the problem. Submitting is. I've written dozens of stories which have rarely, sometimes never, made their way out of my file drawers into the hands of potential editors. Once many years ago, I paid to have a handful of articles and picture book manuscripts professionally critiqued. The cover letter came back saying, "rarely do we come across a package so polished and ready to submit." I received suggestions on where to submit each piece. Did I send them out? No. Why? Because I also received suggestions on how to make them even better. And so I sat with my butt glued to the chair as I tweaked those little manuscripts' lives away.

Lately I've written a number of non-fiction and/or historical fiction pieces. They've all made the rounds of my critique groups, are in decent shape and ready to submit. Yet I hesitate. Can I find one more primary source to make sure the facts are accurate? Would it be possible to schedule a trip to the location to see it first hand? Maybe visit the museum and dig through the artifact files? Just a little more research, that's all I need. . .

And so I have coined my own acronym - BOOCAMIM. I need to get my Butt Out Of Chair And Manuscript In Mail. I'm suffering from the BOOCAMIM Blues, a very real malady that keeps me in an endless loop of tweaking, researching, and putting off submission.

Since I've yet to find an editor who is willing to come to my house and look through my files to read any of my writing gems, I've had to find ways to beat the BOOCAMIM Blues. It's been a rough road, but I've succeeded in finding my way to publication. My second book, Emperor Penguins even won the 2007 Maryland Blue Crab Award.

Since I am sure others have, or will suffer from the BOOCAMIM Blues sometime in their writing careers, I thought I'd share some tips I've used to chase those blues away.

1. Act Like a kid - Whether it's doing homework, chores, or helping in some way, kids generally do what we ask more willingly if they are rewarded for their efforts. Take a lesson from them and reward yourself. When I think back over the period I was most active in submitting I realize it was when my critique group decided since we were all children's writers we should act like kids. We gave ourselves stickers for each submission, each rejection, (because we couldn't be rejected if we didn't submit), each revision, each acceptance, etc. It was silly, but it worked because everyone could see where she stood on the big chart on the wall we used to track our progress. You don't need to develop a sticker system. Use whatever reward works for you. And share your results with at least one other person in order to be accountable to someone other than yourself. That added bit of pressure works wonders.
2. Enter contests - Entering contests is a great way to hone writing skills because writers must adhere to strict contest guidelines in terms of subject, word count, etc. It also forces writers to write within a deadline. Endless tweaking is impossible. If a manuscript is going to be considered for a contest, it has to be submitted by the contest deadline. If it isn't submitted, it isn't a contestant.
3. Answer the Call - If you are serious about writing for children, odds are you are a member of SCBWI and subscribe to one or more writing magazines or newsletters. Scour them for market information. Periodically houses will call for submissions, giving writers a limited window of time to send work samples or specific types of manuscripts. This is particularly true in the non-fiction or educational market. Both of my published books were submitted because of publisher calls. In one case, I was given a writing assignment after I "auditioned" to write for a series. This was a double deadline whammy since I not only had a specific window in which to submit my sample piece, but once the book was assigned I needed to meet several more deadlines along the way toward publication. Many magazines publish theme lists with deadlines for submission of articles for each issue. Get your hands on those theme lists, find a theme that speaks to you, write and submit.
4. Pretend - Entering contests and answering publisher calls are great strategies for submitting new material, but what about those manuscripts you've already written? In this case, remember what it was like to be a kid and pretend. Use your imagination and whatever works for you. Make up your own contest or call. Pretend the perfect editor stopped by your house for coffee, looked through your files and found the ideal manuscript for her list. Unrealistic? Sure, but it's pretend, so who cares? It doesn't matter how realistic or unrealistic the scenario, only that it forces you to set deadlines and submit your work. Don't forget to write those deadlines down - just in case the real world intrudes and you forget what game you're playing. It never hurts to share deadlines with someone else too in order to increase your accountability to meeting them.
5. Attend Conferences - Attending conferences, seminars, and other writing related events is a great way to hone your skills, nourish your writing talents, network and rub elbows with editors, agents, and other writers. It's also a great submission motivator. Conferences cost money. Most of us don't have an endless supply of it on hand, and eventually we need to justify the expense. One way to justify it is to sell our writing. We can't sell it if we don't submit it. In addition to costing money, conferences can motivate you to submit in another way. Most conferences will have one or more editors on the agenda, many who work at closed houses. Generally, however, they will accept manuscripts from conference attendees, often giving specific instructions on how to submit in order to bypass the slush pile. However, these submission windows aren't open forever. I learned this the hard way. I attended a conference several years ago in which I read part of my manuscript at open mic and later was approached by the editor who told me it was exactly what she was looking for. Since it was still a work in progress I asked her if I could submit it to her when I finished. She said "absolutely." Unfortunately, it was almost a year later when I finished it, and by that time the window had closed and it never even made it past the first reader.
6. Set goals - Setting goals is a great motivator. But don't just set them, write them down and put them somewhere you can't help but see them every time you walk into your writing space. One year I faithfully set my goals at the beginning of the year, filed them away in my desk and promptly forgot them. Needless to say, if I reached any of them that year it was pure coincidence. Not all goals even have to be submission related. I was continually frustrated because I had to share our one working computer with my husband and two girls. I could only work on it when no one else was home so I set a goal to get my own laptop. But in order to afford one I needed to sell some of my writing, which meant I had to submit my work. As it turned out, I didn't need to set this goal because Santa brought me a laptop for Christmas. I still have that pressure to submit, however, because if I don't start selling my work Santa will wonder why he wasted his money.

These are just a few ways I've discovered to chase away the BOOCAMIM Blues. Not all of them may work for you and I'm sure there are others. The important thing is to make the manuscript the best it can be and then get your butt out of the chair and the manuscript in the mail. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to put the final touches on this article, mail it off and reward myself with a sticker on my chart.