I’ve been lax in submitting my freelance work lately. Since I got a regular gig at Care2, I’ve been spending my mornings writing articles that I know will run, rather than investing my time submitting previous pieces to markets who may or may not be interested. I’ve also been tapped to contribute to another soon-to-launch site, which makes it even easier to keep busy with my writing (more on that later).

But I’m going to be slowing down my output at Care2 a bit compared to last month. I’ll write when something really strikes me; maybe a few posts per week. Not because I’m not enjoying it — it definitely beats the more technical stuff I’ve done a lot of in the past: stock analysis or calculus tips, for example. But I’m ready for a little break.

What I’d really like to see in print is a little thing I wrote all about tea. That may not immediately sound fascinating to you, but I enjoyed writing it. It’s a sort of spiritual successor to one of the more popular piece I’ve written, called “The Art of Science — The Science of Art?” I might define it as creative non-fiction moreso than feature writing, if I stop to think about it; particularly the tea article, since I let myself loose stylistically a bit more.

I had this piece in mind for at least six months before I actually wrote it. Where my previous piece in this vein started out talking about DNA but used that as a jumping off point to discuss the works of Salvador Dali, this newer piece starts off with me talking about my chemistry lab and then discussing all sorts of little-known facts about my favourite hot beverage. It’s a kind of writing I really enjoy because it combines my interests in science and culture by drawing connections between them.

It’s also difficult enough to categorize that finding the right market is a challenge. But if I don’t keep sending it out, it won’t happen. And the same goes for everything else that’s making the rounds at the moment. You have to submit. It’s a basic rule of freelancing: keep your stuff circulating until it sells.