Summer and Such

We're deep into summer now. The Fourth has passed with the usual fanfare, and I got to have both a productive work day and some hot dogs. Although I didn't plan on going anywhere or doing anything typical of the holiday, I still dressed the part--I live in a small town. It's kind of a requirement. And I did end up at the store, so it wasn't a wasted fashion choice.

In terms of my work, I'm getting ready to send more out. I have a flash fiction and a regular short story that I keep peddling instead of writing more, which is really what I should be doing. I have to make a decision with the short story before I send it out again, because I think that the ending is what is killing its chances. I need to either change the last sentence because it's one of those "no duh, this is what the whole thing is about" sentences,  or I need to dump it altogether. I only have until the 12th to get it in, so I'm going to spend today looking at all different possibilities to give it a better chance at publication this time.

The flash fiction is very meta and is what it is. It's definitely not for everyone, so I just keep sending it out to see where it's going to stick.

I realized that I accidentally forgot about NaNoWriMo summer session, so I guess I won't be participating in that, but I will be over here just writing away.

What's New for June

It's the first full week of June and I have a lot of plans for this month. I have do a little in a short amount of time because I'm heading back to Camp NaNoWriMo in July. I skipped the April session because I didn't have a project ready to work on, but now there's one on the horizon that I really want to get down on paper.

For this month, I'm focusing on getting submissions in because many lit journals close their reading periods in July or August. I'm concentrating on flash fiction and poetry submissions this time because I have plenty of these sitting around, and I would like to find a home for them.

I also still have some work to do to find journals, magazines and other outlets that are sympathetic to rhyming poetry. I have a couple pieces that I really like, but they have been all but shunned from the literary landscape. You've never seen a piece of writing rejected so fast. For anything else, the typical wait for a reject (or if you want to be an optimist, an acceptance) is six weeks to six months. When I try to submit one of my poems that happen to have a rhyme scheme, the longest I've ever had to wait is two weeks. One time it was rejection after only two days. If all lit journals worked that quickly, writers would either have no more confidence left to go on or little time to dwell on a reject, upping their confidence to an astronomical level.

It's a funny thing about using a rhyme scheme in poetry--today's literary elites think rhyming shows the skills of an uneducated moron whose only exposure to poetry is mass market greeting cards. Though if you go back a generation or two, those trying to get published with free verse instead of a steady rhyme scheme were also met with that label of ignorance to the literary canon. Luckily, the elite crowd is still relatively isolated inside university libraries and tend to find mild internet use blasphemous to the writing process. There's still hope for all of us writers who dare to break the mold by reminding the last generation that we are actually reforming the mold they dared to break first, making it into something new again.

ERROR

...not what you want to see on the work website when you wake up on a Monday morning, but there it is. I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to work for awhile, so what to do, what to do...

Things have been going well in the comics department so far. Although, I'm pretty sure I suck at drawing arms from the shoulder to what seem to always be gnarled fingertips. Not everyone I knew in college had fingertips like that, so redrawing (AGAIN) may be necessary. But it's all part of the process, right? Just like editing a novel? Please tell me it is? :)

The comics had led to slight neglect in the fiction department, but I'm still revising some flash fiction for an upcoming contest. If I can find the last revisions I printed out. I think their hiding in the filing cabinet, so I must go exploring later today. I'll be sure to take a snack and a flashlight in case I get lost.

Other than all of that... life is pretty sweet right now. And where the hell did this lasting positive attitude come from? Seriously don't ask me. I've been happy or at least content for about six weeks now. I don't know where it came from and I really don't want to jinx it. It seems to work for me.

Writing is fun!

Okay, so writing has always been fun for me, but this week it's especially fun. I finally have the time to work on fiction again, and I'm not going to let this chance get away from me. I'm working on a flash fiction story for a contest. I don't expect to win, but this is still a great opportunity to write something new and actually get in done within a reasonable amount of time. I actually have a number of contest entries lined up, all of which are due in by the end of September.

Since the first draft of all the entries have been completed, I'll have plenty of time for work and revisions this week. And if I can get the flash done early, I can get back to working on the poems for Personas. Some of the poems are giving me a hard time and I need to show them who's boss!

My only obstacle this week is the last part of my move: packing a handful of boxes and watching the movers like a hawk. I have never used a moving company before, and I'm very possessive about the possessions I do have. I know it's just paranoia and I'll get over it. And if I can't, I'll write a poem about it. Ah, literary therapy.