regularly, if not every day. 2. Submitting! I had a phenomenal high school English teacher who encouraged us to submit our writing. I wrote a pretty dynamite poem in her 11th grade Honors English class and upon hearing her charge sent it off via mail to the New Yorker. Of course it was rejected, and on the advice of friends I hung on to that rejection slip for a few years. But it certainly didn't inspire me to submit anything else for a good long while. We write for ourselves, but we also write to be heard, right? Otherwise we'd just keep our stories to ourselves and tell them to ourselves until we become weirdos walking around on street corners mumbling stories under our breath. Right now it's easier than ever to submit to hundreds of different and varied journals as often as you wish, often with no cost whatsoever. When I submitted that poem to the New Yorker I had to shell out for a stamp but we don't even have to do that anymore. The magic of the internet has brought more literary outlets than can be counted and they all need great works so check them out! Read them, remember which ones appear to appreciate your particular voice and send your stuff in. This serves a couple of purposes--it will eventually lead to other people reading your work, and it will also lead to developing a thicker skin when it comes to inevitable rejection. But sometimes that rejection comes with solid and useful criticism, which can lead to better writing. So how have I pursued my craft? By writing instead of talking about wanting to be a writer, and then by submitting my finished writing to journals.
3) How has this mirrored or differed from the goals of Joe, the recent high school graduate?
Well, Joe the recent high school graduate had no
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