Submission Excitement

Currently, I have four works out in the nether world of editorial slush piles, waiting for a response. I made three of those submissions last week, and one tonight.

I can't describe the excitement, and the hopefulness, mixed with the anxiety of waiting to get a response. Will they accept my work? Reject it? Ask me to make changes and resubmit? Just offer a contract? Reject it with good critique that actually helps me become a better writer?

I won't know until those responses come. And tomorrow, instead of thinking about it, I will write again, and maybe even submit something again. I've found it's better to keep writing, and not lose sleep over possible responses.

But for now, fresh from the submission process, I know it will take some serious distraction to get those thoughts out of my head. I wonder if I can find something adventurous, fun, and maybe even funny on netflix?

Pumpkin patch poetry

Muddy pools lead us
through the corn maze to giant
pumpkins, wheelbarrows
and slingshot contests that
we actually win this year.

So we bring home our prize,
golden and round, barely
squeezing
in the back of our van with
its smaller cousins.

There are plans for
the carving, and plans
for the painting,
but I just
want the seeds,
toasted crisp and
salted sweet.

Inspired by other writers

Sometimes, when my writing feels like I've stumbled through a thorn bush, I take some time to read.

Ok, I admit it. I take time to read on any given day, no matter what my writing has been like, however, there are days like today when that reading inspires me, and encourages me to write.
This morning, as I perused everdayfiction.com, I came across a light, funny, sci-fi story by Erin Ryan. It hit the spot.
Then I looked up her website, read some of her blog, and now I feel like tackling my own stories again. Somehow, reading another writer's experiences with writing, publishing and just living with stories running around in her head, inspires me to take my own writing a little further and push myself a little harder.

Because her writing struck my funny bone, and because her blog inspired me to write with more confidence, I invite you to check out Erin Ryan's story at http://www.everydayfiction.com/ and check out her website and blog at http://interiorpassage.com/

Another Stanza

Yesterday, having "Night Terrors" published at everydaypoets.com felt good, and yet worrisome. Despite all the encouraging comments from so many friends and family, I feel that there is something missing in that poem.
My husband and my kids, being delightfully and usually gently honest, said, "that's the end? It sounds like there should be a closing line."
Their words resonated with me, and I turned them over throughout the day, and this morning when I woke up.

So here's a shot at another, last stanza for "Night Terrors"

"Nearly sixty years later,
the night terrors still come
but he has found a shield.

He wakes up and
breathes in hope."


There isn't much there yet, but if I add that to the whole poem, and work with the wording more, I might have a poem I could be really proud of without any remorse or regret.

Published!

Just wanted to shout it from the rooftops - I'm published! Again! And so far, people I know are still talking to me!

The first time I had a poem published, it had such emotional response from people I knew that I gained friends and lost friends.

"Night Terrors" is a poem that is almost as gritty as that first published poem, and I have been nervous about it's appearance at everydaypoets.com today. Hopefully, I won't have anyone walk up to me in the next couple of days and say, "I can't believe you wrote that trash. Don't ever speak to me again."

It is a poem based on bitterness. I know that. I wish I could have fanagled a little more hope into it, but I didn't.

Taken from my Dad's experiences with a charity hospital, his later post-traumatic stress symptoms, and then blended in my own imagination, this poem has a "reality" piece to it that makes it hard for me to share. But I am trying to meet my oldest daughter's definition of courage: to face my fears.