Taking Stock

It's wild to think about, but 2018 is nearing the halfway point. I had some writing goals to complete before the end of the year, so I'm spending a few moments to take stock to see where I am on that.

My main goal was to publish four works--it didn't matter what form it took, I just wanted to get four pieces out there. So far this year there has been a novella, a poetry collection, and a story on the Episode app. The first one is getting pulled soon, and those last two are not completed, but since the finished parts are live and available to the public, it still counts towards my goal. I just have to find one more piece to finish, submit, and find success with.

Speaking of submissions--all of those submissions I was waiting to hear back on in January all died in April. Every last one of them, including the rhyming poetry I submitted to a contest specifically for rhyming poetry in which all of the winners and finalists were not rhyming poems. That's what I get for not realizing they lumped rhyming in with "traditional" so top prizes went to those instead. My poor rhyming poem... it's been through it all, and still no one takes it seriously.

Anyway, the two submissions I was waiting to hear back from when I last wrote about it were also rejections, but specifically rejections because they had each received a record number of submissions for that submission period. Both publications pointed to being featured in Submittable's weekly emails--and of course that's where I was getting my submission leads, so apparently it's completely counterintuitive to use that weekly email. Who knew?

My next step will be getting back to finding a home for my poetry chapbook. I don't think I'll be aiming for contests anymore because they simply don't work out (and can get pricey with entry fees). I'll be targeting micro-presses instead, which may give me a better chance at getting that fourth publication before the end of the year.

The Productivity of the Writer

Because I spend most of my writing day working in a capacity that's geared towards marketing, productivity has become nothing more than a buzz word when it comes to my own writing life. It's a concept that is hard to grasp as a person who isn't a writer, because productivity is usually proven with tangible results: you have a story published, your book is coming out, you managed to successfully dress yourself when you finally emerged from your home office--things like that.

Productivity for my professional life has a much wider scope that includes finishing drafts of stories no one else may ever have the pleasure of reading, getting up the nerve to submit to a publication (then actually pressing the button to submit it), begging fifty book bloggers for reviews and getting one back. These are the things no one ever sees. What do people see? They see me staring at the wall, probably moving my lips silently as I figure out the word order and phrasing I want to use in a story I haven't begun to put down on paper--and this is totally a productive activity too, as weird as it may look.

My point to all this rambling talk about productivity (which in itself may be debatable that it was a productive use of my time)? The beginning of 2018 has been a super-productive time for me already. I managed to get my chapbook contest submission in on time and have convinced myself that the entry fee was, in fact, worth it. I just finished editing a short story that I'm ready to send out, although I'm still a little timid about where I want to send it to. I wrote the story months ago and knew once I saw the completed first draft exactly where I wanted to send it. Over the editing process I was constantly battling with my own ego, telling myself, "You must be joking. You can't send it there." And the next day I would tell myself that I was just being my usual anxiety-ridden self. I finally convinced myself that I should just go for it--it won't do me any harm to try. And then Cat Person happened.

For those who haven't heard about this, Cat Person is a short story in The New Yorker that created huge waves all over the internet a few weeks ago. Serious waves. Like the author already has a lucrative book deal kind of waves. I read it and thought what everyone else did--it was so simple, but such a genius piece of work that captures everything about the topic it discusses (I'm being vague because I think you should read it rather than suffer through my synopsis of it). That made me once again reconsider sending out my story because that's exactly where I wanted to send it. But in the name of writerly productivity, I'm sending it there anyway. I don't care if I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's not getting in. This isn't the year to be afraid anymore.

...with my writing. I'm still totally afraid of spiders and small talk.

A Few Short Updates

I'm getting back into the swing of things, full force this time. And here's just a few updates about what I'm embarking on this summer.

Upgrading The Career

I've been freelancing for almost a decade, and for most of that time I've had a sense of pride for how little I have had to invest to live the dream (which is probably 60/40 dream/nightmare at any given time). But things are changing. I'm still committed to making money solely from writing/editing/being generally creative, which means I have to start upgrading the business. I've been making tons of lists on what I have to do to get all of this going, but really it starts with two simple things: a P.O. box and a website.

Without a business address, I've been stunted at what I can do. I can't have a mailing list through MailChimp or any other company without one, and I certainly don't want to put out email blasts with the home address. Without a website, I don't feel I can do all I need to do with communicating my writing services, my work, and everything else. That, and as good as Blogger has been to me, it just doesn't look professional to have a Blogger web address on a business card (which is another one of those pesky tasks on my list). I'm amazed I've been able to work this long without these two very important items, but that time is coming to an end.

Submissions Calling

When it comes to submissions, I'm getting back up on the proverbial (and temperamental) horse. Although I missed the deadline to send in my poetry chapbook to one particular press, the manuscript itself is not dead. I've been researching places that take chapbooks and have found quite a few that may be a good home for what I've created. I found this list of chapbook submissions particularly helpful, and maybe you will too if you have something to submit.

Unfolding Life on Playster

Draft2Digital just added a new distribution channel, Playster, and I've placed Unfolding Life on it. Honestly, I hadn't heard of it before this, but it seems similar to Kindle Unlimited where you buy a subscription rather than individual titles. So, if you're already a subscriber, please check it out. And by check it out, I mean read the whole thing, because with subscription services, I don't get paid unless the book gets read.

Those Lashes, Though

I've also been keeping up with my product testing and reviews over at Showered in Beauty. The latest review is for Revlon mega Multiplier Mascara.

That's it for my updates. What are you working on this week? 

Lessons on What Could Have Been

Sometimes you think when an opportunity presents itself, it's the universe telling you that you need to make a move, take a chance. I had that sort of moment two weeks ago when I found an ad for a press looking for chapbook manuscripts. Since I had just come off of a month of putting together a poetry manuscript, I thought I would make the most of it—pick out the best of the original to create a chapbook. And it seemed like a good, cohesive collection. I felt proud to have made it.

But I flaked. Over the past week I kept going, “oh, I'll submit it later tonight.” I convinced myself I had one more day, one more day, wait, just one more day—then I ran out of days. On the last day before the deadline, I decided to reread the submission call. It wanted stuff that was experimental, surreal. And I quickly decided that my poetry didn't fit within those parameters, and convinced myself it wouldn't be the right fit.

I should have submitted anyway. 

It wasn't the fear of rejection. I think I need a recent rejection under my belt to get me back in the swing of things. It was the fear that I may actually succeed. I thought about all that may entail, and I was worried about a lot of things. I have anxiety about sharing my work, which has really only developed over the past six months. I will let absolute strangers pour over my every written word, but there are maybe ten people on this earth that I don't want near my work—I don't want them to even know what I write. And it's the fear that this tiny group of people could get their hands on my work, could confront me about it, could potentially ridicule me that's done more that keep me from submitting my work. It's inhibited my ability to promote the stuff that's already out there for fear they may come across it. It's prevented me from completing as many posts on this blog as I would like. In my mind, the threat is circling and I feel like if I make the slightest move, everything could crumble. It's stupid, but it's hard to argue with anxiety because it's irrational. And you know it's irrational. But you buy into it just the same.

I used to freely be able to talk to people face-to-face about writing, even going as far as talking about projects I have in mind. I used to be able to immerse myself in new submissions. I've been putting together a list of publications for my own use, cobbled together from some of my monthly writer newsletters, and I'm starting to see some publications I've already submitted to. Then my mind wanders back to five, six years ago. That's when I wasn't afraid to submit my work to place far and wide. I wasn't afraid of the rejection. I also had the mindset that everything I sent out had a real potential of making it.

Obstacles to publishing don't phase me. It's just the irrational fear that's left. Even if no one wanted it, I could get work out there and take no pay. But I'm still convinced that the best of my work hasn't touched the light of day and still has earning potential. I can't give it all away just to prove something to my own anxiety. My anxiety doesn't really care. If I get over this obstacle my anxiety will just find something else to latch on to—it always does.

Each morning I get to start over. I get to face whatever hangups I seem to have, and I get to try and work towards a better situation where I don't have to feel as anxious about every little decision I make (or fail to make). If this post is published, it must mean that I've been able to conquer the first of many battles to get back to the full-fledged writing career I'm meant to have.

An Unwanted Guest

I spent some time babysitting about two weeks ago. Now I'm paying the price. I have a cough/cold thingy and it's been draining a lot of my energy. I'm working at about 20% of my normal capacity, but the upside is that I'm still working. Although, NaNoWriMo has been severely neglected. I may use it as an excuse to avoid family togetherness at the end of this week. ;)

The poetry chapbook manuscript I've been chattering about on Twitter and other social media sites is going out today. The only thing I have left to finish is a little formatting and the table of contents, then it's off.

So with my tea and my tissues by my side, I'm ready to conquer the week. What are you writing this week?

The Manuscript is Back

My Personas poetry collection/chapbook is now back in my hands. It got booted out of the contest I submitted it to in the first quarterfinal round. I kind of had a feeling it wouldn't make it since the publisher running the contest decided it would be a good idea to tweet the decision process over the last couple of weeks. Any time they made a comment about something being wrong with one of the submissions, I just assumed it was mine. Narcissistic? Yes. Helpful? Maybe. I did like this turn of events because I think it let me down gently, but in a more general sense it probably wasn't a good move. Even if the comments in no way pertained to my entry, it did pertain to someone's entry. It felt a little voyeuristic to be able to know that an entry was dismissed before the actual author found out, unless they were stalking around like me.

Now I'm not sure what I want to do with the manuscript. I had previously decided if this contest didn't pan out, I would self publish. I think I may hold that idea off for a little longer and try to submit more of the poems individually to publications. Tuesday Morning Hangover was part of the original longer draft of Personas, and someone decided they liked it, so maybe it's the bundling that is the issue. I think I'll send them out for a another round and see what happens.

A Little More Prep

I have one more major poetry submission that I'm working on right now. It's a chapbook contest and the one that I wanted to select pieces from the already semi-established Personas manuscript. I've also been working on one or two new poems to add to this. As always, it's a slow, thoughtful process needed to finally release work out into the world. This time, it's definitely ready to go.

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Getting Ready for a Great Week

This week is Submission Week in my world. I finally have enough (good) work to submit to various journals, magazines and contests. So far my list includes two chapbook submissions, two online journals and a newsletter. It's all poetry at the moment because I find it the quickest to choose a home for. Publications that accept fiction are a little more tricky--sometimes you think your work could be an exact fit for them, sometimes they vary so wildly you aren't sure. More research must be done before I get back into the short story game.


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Up to My Ears in Poetry

There may be a slight change in plans with my Personas manuscript. I'm a little short on poems for my chapbook submissions, so the collection may be splitting up. I would love the chance to win the chapbook contests I'm entering, so I really want to put my best foot forward. Even if I don't win the contests, the collection can reunite by August. So even though the date is farther away than I thought, I may finally have a tentative release date. It also gives me more time for cover design and layouts, so I'm happy.

Sense of Accomplishment

Well, after participating for a few years, I finally did it--I won Script Frenzy! Makes me feel accomplished, although I know that the script is merely half the work. There's much more to do, and I'll be sure to worry about that tomorrow, but today I enjoy the feeling.

Since it's the last day of April, here is the last Poem of the Day: Rain

I hope that everyone enjoyed the poetry celebration as much as I did! Of course, poetry is not escaping from my daily work. I am still preparing my poetry manuscript. I'm also putting together two different submissions for chapbook contests. Those deadlines are approaching fast, so I've been sorting through all the poems I've written, looking for hidden gems tucked in the back of old notebooks and written on the back of receipts. Found a few rough ones, but nothing a little poetic polishing can't clear up.