If your goal is to be published somewhere--anywhere--to build up credits that will open the door to larger publications, the religious market is a good place to begin.
John Steinbeck's dog ate an early draft of Of Mice and Men. Ernest Hemingway famously lost an entire suitcase of his early writings - a suitcase that contained his originals and all his copies. The only copy of Thomas Carlyle's The History of the French Revolution was destroyed when it was used to light a fire. It took him six months to recreate it. Dylan Thomas managed to lose the script for Under Milk Wood three times.
