Welcome back to Keep Writing, where the foliage is already past peak, something that we here find perfectly normal and not at all depressing, nope nope nope. If you’re new here, warmest welcomes to you: Help yourself to the bubbling cauldron of apple cider in the corner as you stroll through our archives.
I expected cooking with a toddler in tow would be difficult. Less time, more distractions, right? I figured I’d probably be contending with a picky toddler’s palate. I’d have to learn how to whisk and stir and chop with a tiny sous chef tugging on my apron strings.
But I never imagined that cooking might actually become…easier?
I mean, sure, I’m still learning to work around the apron-tugging. But having a child forced me to realize it doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be labored. I don’t have to make the Best Meal Ever every time we sit down to eat. Like: Nicki, it’s a Tuesday. Who is out here going full Ratatouille on a Tuesday? What sane person thinks that should be the goal?
Blame it on years spent working in food media, where the goal for every recipe we published was very much Best Meal Ever, I guess. (As it should be, if someone is spending the time and effort and grocery money on a recipe you’re being paid to put forth in the world.) But there are no food critics or angry comment section in my kitchen: I’ve got an audience of two at home, and thankfully they both eat whatever I serve with enthusiasm.
So I throw things together. I cook on vibes. I make things up. I try new recipes I haven’t made before even if I’m cooking for friends, because here’s the secret: Even if things go wildly south, I know I can fix it.
Too flat? Acid! Too spicy? Dairy! Too bland? Chiles! Too tinny? Umami! If I taste something and realize it’s missing some bass notes, I can reach for soy sauce or anchovies; if it’s missing something high and bright, I chop some herbs. Everything is fixable if you’ve got an observant palate and a confident hand at the wheel, steering your meal toward whatever you’re craving.
And you’re a smart reader. You know where this is going, so say it with me:
The same is true of your writing.
Just get in the kitchen and start cooking! You don’t have to write the best sentence ever on a Tuesday. Just focus on getting the sentences down, period. You can fix them later.
You’ve got a good ear. You’ve got a sharp mind. You have the tools at your disposal. Get in that draft and get messy.
Splatter the walls. Shatter a plate. You can sweep up in the morning. Focus on momentum, on movement, on making the marks you’ll expand upon later. Get going, keep moving, lay those foundations.
Because you can fix it. You can fix anything. Even the scorched-pot stews and the broken sauces in your drafts. And the better you get at writing, the more quickly you’ll identify what something needs. Maybe some punchier chapters, maybe some saltier sentences. Perhaps some floral description, perhaps some heat.
But you have to have something to start with.
So strap on your apron and start cooking up something new. Don’t sweat it when things start going a little south. Just keep moving in that draft for as long as you’re able.
Because you can fix it. (No, really, you can.)1
Until next month—
Keep writing,
Nicki
Calls for Submissions
Spotlight: Panorama: “Encounters” submissions
Witches Magazine: Poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for witches
Spotlight Pick
Panorama: “Encounters” submissions
Panorama, “the journal of travel, place, and nature,” is seeking submissions for its upcoming “ENCOUNTERS” themed issue. Sought categories include travel memoirs (1,500 to 6,000 words) that are “accounts of meaningful encounters—with people, places, or animals—that have altered your perspective or understanding of the world. We are particularly interested in work that reflects mutual exchange, where transformation is not one-sided but shared.” Other welcome topics include decolonizing travel works (“stories that move beyond the colonial gaze of ‘discovery’ to explore mutual recognition, unexpected intimacy, and the complex negotiations of identity that occur when bodies, histories, and worldviews intersect”), nature writing, flash fiction and nonfiction (150-300 words), food writing, travel fiction, poetry, and more. See full issue guidelines for information on all the (many) genres sought for this issue. No fees, no payments for online editions.
Deadline: Oct. 14
Club Plum: Literary horror
Send your most thrilling, chilling literary horror to Club Plum for its annual literary horror October issue. Submit one lyric essay/creative nonfiction piece up to 3,000 words or one piece of flash fiction up to 800 words. Up to three hybrid works or prose poems (no lined poetry—only prose) are also welcome, although for the latter, editors note “we are not fond of straightforward paragraphs masquerading as prose poetry.” No payments, no submission fees.
Deadline: Oct. 1 (Note: This is what the deadline has been the past two years, but I found no specific 2025 deadline dates on Club Plum’s website, so to be safe, I’d submit for this as soon as your work is ready to do so.)
Witches Magazine: Poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for witches
This quarterly “magazine for witches, written by witches” is looking for witchy poetry, short fiction, and articles on spells, crystals, tarot, etc. for its upcoming winter issue. Prose should be between 300 and 1,500 words (less than 500 words for short stories); poetry should not exceed 40 lines. No submission fees, no payments that I can find.
Deadline: Oct. 1
shoegaze literary: “Act of attrition” submissions
For this themed issue, the editors of shoegaze literary “are interested in formal apologies, not quite remorseful confessions, and terms of surrender. We seek work that engages with rates of attrition, dropping off or dropping out, and explores domestic / cyber wars of attrition. Whatever grinds you down, whatever gets you on your knees.” Send up to three poems or up to two works of fiction (6,000 words max total). No payments, no submission fees.
Deadline: Oct. 10
Blink-Ink: 50-word museum stories
“Visit a museum—can you hear the muses singing? Send us your best stories of approximately fifty words about museums,” urge the editors of Blink-Ink, a quarterly print journal of microfiction. No submission fees, no payments that I can find.
Deadline: October 15
The Santa Clara Review: Submissions on California
“What are your perceptions, your dreams, your experiences of California?” ask the editors of The Santa Clara Review. “Any and all works about The Golden State—past, present, and future—will be considered.” Send works of fiction or nonfiction up to 6,000 words or up to three poems.
Deadline: Oct. 15
Chthonic Lit: Short speculative fiction
Send short speculative fiction that blurs the “line between genre fiction and literary fiction” for consideration in Chthonic Lit: Volume I Issue II. Submitters may also send poetry, essays, and other genres, but the focus of the publication will be primarily short stories: “the more unique and boundary-pushing, the better.” Send stories ranging from 500-5,000 words, although “preference will be given to stories between 1,500 and 3,000 words due to space constraints.”
Deadline: Oct. 31
Hat tip to tortured poet Taylor Alison Swift for the title inspo.