It takes SO LONG to hear back from poetry journals! I sent out poems on March 1st and still haven’t heard from the majority of them. I wouldn’t mind that so much if they allowed simultaneous submissions but many of the better journals don’t which means I end up waiting for months to hear back about the poems before I’m able to send them anywhere else. It could take years to get a single poem published at this rate even if it was the best poem in the world since I’m assuming it takes a minimum of 3-5 attempts before one of the journals decides to publish it and each attempt ties the poem up for 4-6 months. Ugh! Also, I’m anxious about several journals which have rejected only some of the poems I sent them (and therefore they haven’t rejected the others – at least not yet). This is how I always felt with violin auditions when I was younger, except that there was always a definitive date when they got back to you so the anxiety was less generalized. Grrrrrrrrr…
Someday They’ll Be Sorry…
Poetry journals that have rejected me so far:
Poetry
Brilliant Corners
West Branch
The American Poetry Review
Poetry journals I’m still waiting to hear back from:
War, Literature and the Arts
American Literary Review
Poesy
Relief
Image
Artful Dodge
Ascent
Cimarron Review
Fence
I know for a fact that I’ve passed the first review at two of these places because they have online tracking. Also, some of these journals are almost a month late getting back to me, which I’m choosing to take as a good sign. My goal is to send out the next round of applications by the end of next week. I’m very glad I made a spreadsheet to keep track of this.
Note to aspiring poets: MAKE A SPREADSHEET TO TRACK YOUR SUBMISSIONS! That way you’ll be able to navigate the craziness with minimal pain.
Also, my goal for the remainder of April is to work on one of my fiction projects for at least half an hour every day. Baby steps…
Inspiration Strikes Back
Finally! I’m in Florida with my boyfriend and his family for Passover. It’s my first break from work since I got promoted and I didn’t realize until now how thoroughly my stress level was affecting my writing (and everything else). My life had gotten so crazy that I wasn’t even dreaming at night. Now that I’ve had two days off in a row I’ve started dreaming again, andof course I’ve launched myself back into writing.
I’m working on a short story that’s expanding so rapidly I’m worried it’ll turn into another novel. I don’t know if I can afford to be working on three novels at once! This was supposed to be a crazy detour to circumvent writer’s block and now it’s turning into a frightening monstrosity. The story is set in a Christian nation-state with gender outlaws, a reincarnated diety, an underground network of vampires, and a werewolf FBI agent. I’m a little worried that everyone who reads this will assume I’m on drugs. For the record, the only thing I’m addicted to is chocolate.
I’m also trying to talk my boyfriend into helping me create tranny greating cards. These would commemorate trans* milestones such as starting hormones, having surgery, changing your name, and changing your pronouns. I’m sure people would buy them.
And on a less inspiring note, I’ve started getting back rejection letters from the poetry journals where I sent my work. I’m looking at it in a positive light, though, and am getting ready to send my poems off to my second tier of journals. I WILL get published!
