Narrowing Down the Publishing Venues

I was really inspired in class today by the fact that Paul is submitting to RMMLA. Holy cow! Also, Dr. Burton's criticism of Criterion (good place to publish, horrible place to actually be read) rang true of some of the other venues I was considering. With that in mind, I'm going to put a lot of my possible venues on the backburner and focus on one very promising opportunity: the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies.

This journal quite recently published a special issue about blindness in literature, at least one of the articles I plan to integrate into my final paper. (See my annotated bibliography.) With that inclusion, I can really become part of the discussion this journal is fostering, and people might actually read the paper.

Which is, of course, terrifying.

Some things I need to do to mitigate the terror:

• Find a solid organization for my paper. I've been writing a little freehand up until now, but I need to have a series of moves planned out the way that Bailey does.
• Make sure I address every contingency in my close readings. I'm making quite a radical claim, and I need to show that I've done my homework. This will probably mean spending a lot more time in the primary text this weekend.
• Really make sure I'm understanding the points of view of the people I'm quoting. If I want to be part of a discussion, I have to listen first, talk second.

Anyone else have tips about how to make this paper great?