Submission Frenzy!

I got a bit behind on my submissions, because I was self-rejecting and not sending anything out. But poetry is subjective, and even if you've read the magazine that you're submitting to the editor is the best person to make the call on whether your work is suitable. So now everything is back out.

You'd think sending poetry out in batches was quicker and easier than sending out a piece at a time, but it's really not. You still have to check all four or five pieces to make sure you're not resubmitting. Then you have to combine them all into a single document and format to market requirements as there isn't really a standard.

Now I need to Write More Poems. I bought Robert Lee Brewer's Smash Poetry Journal to help with that (he's the guy who does Poem a Day), but it will probably end up like the other writing prompt books I've bought - I just can't seem to write in them. And I started a poem, but needed to look something up in a particular book that I can't find despite the fact it's never left the house.

I'll get there.

February Update

My copy of Stories of Music Volume 2 arrived, and it looks great. Now it's just finding the time to read it - I haven't even looked at the poetry-writing books I posted about last time. Or any poetry so far this year. I'm hoping to remedy that by signing up for a poem-a-day by email at Poets.org. A poem in my inbox every day might be just what I need. It would certainly brighten up the working day.

There hasn't been a lot of writing this month. I finished a poem, only to rewrite it from a different viewpoint a week later. I'm still not sure which way works better. Next up, I think, is to finish a piece that's been sitting unfinished in a notebook for the last six months.

Poem a Day

It's that time of year again when novelists are doing NaNoWriMo and poets are doing the Poem a Day challenge over at Poetic Asides. I've done both in the past, with varying degrees of success. As in, I've completed NaNo twice but not with anything that's seen the light of day since, and I've never finished (or even got very far with) Poem a Day.

Part of it is the difference in the way I write poetry and prose. Prose needs momentum, words building on words. Poetry starts with phrase or image and is a slow process: first I brainstorm, then write out a rough draft with all the ideas in the right places. Then I tweak, delete, and reorder until I have a first draft. It can take a while to even get that first draft. Even poems I've written in one sitting have sometimes bounced around in my head for weeks beforehand. So while I can bang out a piece of flash fiction in a day, it's rare for poetry.

Strictly, I don't need to complete the poem every day. I could just brainstorm the prompt given out every day, and work on the poems in December. It feels very messy as an idea though, with interrupted thought processes as likely to lead to 30 unfinished poems as anything else.

So, I'm not sure what to do this November. I'd like to do something, stresses and strains of the day job not withstanding. I miss the feeling completing NaNoWriMo gave me, of being someone who could fit in writing no matter what.