Good Heavens: it’s hard to believe that I am a blogger when, currently, I so seldom blog. I guess it’s the online courses, back to back, eight weeks of creativity online, but a different line from the blog line, and then another eight weeks, five gone and three to go. So much to catch up with. So much to do. Also, all that hard work and then the discovery: a poem published on my blog is a poem published and it is not eligible for publishing elsewhere.
Oh dear … that somehow sucks … like a rose, a poem is a poem is a poem and there is an enormous difference between publishing, can you really call it ‘publishing‘, a poem here and publishing it in a journal or submitting it to a competition, with real live editorial groups poring over its content and then giving it the thumbs up, or thumbs down, as the case may be. Whatever: rules is rules, I guess, made to be broken, but we lesser mortals break them at our peril, I guess.
Whatever: the reading lessens in three weeks time, also the writing load, and the critiquing load, and all the other loads we writers must carry around with us, on our backs, like a snail carries its shell, aka its house. Lesson: be like a hermit crab, moving in, moving out, changing your residence as it suits you … one way tickets that will keep you in the pink, or some other suitable color.
So: since the start of May I have written / revised more than seventy poems, but I daren’t put them on the blog … why not? Because I would like to publish them in more traditional fashion or else submit them for competitions where unpublished work is demanded. Screwed up? Yes, but the whole world is whirling towards a screwed up state right now. What to do? To publish or not to publish? Where to publish? Where not to publish?
You know, deep down, I am not sure that it matters a damn. I’ll play their game, by their rules, for a month or two, then when the shot-gun riders on the poetic garbage trucks (aka the gate-keepers) move in and warn me off, I’ll come back here and publish it all anyway.
Meanwhile: believe, breathe deep and believe. I’m not going away, not just yet, anyway. But I am taking a small break, and I am moving in a slightly different direction … but I am absolutely certain that I’ll be back.
rogermoorepoet 
I marvel at your talent and stamina, Roger. A new direction might be even more invigorating, good luck (as if you needed it)!
A.
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Hi Ana: so good to see you here. Luck is absolutely essential. It often goes hand in hand with hard work, with the result that the two sometimes seem inseparable, but they aren’t. I’ve certainly put in some hard work: now I need the literary gods to smile upon me. See you soon, I hope.
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In my late teens I spent a lot of time sending out poems to the small presses. It’s a killer when you get rejected, but an acceptance makes it all worthwhile.
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Warmth for a week with a winner … but it doesn’t put bread on the table. I’ve done okay in the publishing department. Just trying a new tack now, to see if it will work. We’ll see!
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Have you looked on submittable.com for poetry presses? I’ve submitted to like 30 different writing journals and only one accepted me, but I’m gonna keep trying lol. My patience wears thin as well. The site shows all kinds of submissions and contests. Good luck with all of it. I’ve read some of your poems and I know for a fact that a lot of presses would be interested in accepting them.
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Thank you for this kind comment, Shane. It’s always a question of matching editor and magazine with the verse you’re writing. I got out of the habit of submitting but I am beginning to think I should go back to it. I self-publish (“indie” sounds better) the poetry books and the short stories, just to be able to give them away to friends. Maybe I’ll change that with my latest writing. I’ll have a look at submittable. I also got some god feedback as to Canadian literary sites from this course I’m on, so maybe I’ll do up a portfolio and send it round. I’m in a couple of competitions at present … waiting hopefully for the big one …
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I know exactly how you feel. My blog would have so many more Posts if I didn’t have to keep most of my poetry to send it in to journals. It’s worked once though: one of them got accepted. Alas, no payment, but it still felt good.
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Oh dear: so we’ve both been there, done that and got the tee-shirts. So glad I am not alone. But what a pain. I guess I’ll give this submission thing a month or two and then … screw it! I have some good friends online … I’ll publish for them. Payment? What’s that? Nobody told me about payment!
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