When Sugar Pi De Santo sang “Use what you got”, I’m fairly certain that she wasn’t referring to writing and getting articles published. However, the sentiment expressed, especially in the first verse, can be applied more generally.
Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but how about this? In the first verse, she states that she is not very big. She “ain’t got big hips”, she has a tiny waist, and she isn’t a size 38 anywhere! But:
“I got everything I need to keep my man satisfied,
Cos if you know how to use what you got it doesn’t matter ‘bout your size.”
With some very deft sleight-of-hand, I can relate this to writing in the following way:
It doesn’t matter if you have hardly any followers on social media.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve published hardly anything or nothing at all.
It doesn’t matter if you have published some blog posts and only your mum and dad read them (for the sake of peace and quiet).
Because if you know your subject matter and know how to explain it, or if you’re a good storyteller who can keep a reader gripped, then you’ve got everything you need to keep a magazine editor satisfied.
Admittedly, finding an editor who will actually look at your stuff takes research and a bit of luck (I don’t subscribe to the “build it and they will come” school of thought). But my point is that as far as getting an article published is concerned, what matters most is the quality of your writing and whether it meets a current need.
Having said that, do bear in mind the Matthew Effect (to those that have shall be given). Once you have had an article or a story published, you can inform editors you pitch to of that fact. If you haven’t yet been published, and in case you’re asked to submit samples of your writing, start a blog. There are good reasons, as I wrote in 7 Reasons Writers Should Blog.
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