Confession Tuesday - Getting Organized Edition

Bullet Journal

Dear Reader:

It has been two weeks since my last confession. Two weeks of way too much Donald Trump exposure. Please make him go away! The culmination of a long wait to learn if I was accepted for a program I applied for. And not a period of questioning myself.

To the Confessional, let us begin...

It is Lent and I've not been a very good Lenten observer thus far. I usually think in advance what I see my self doing and not doing over Lent and how it might make me a better person. I really fell down this year. I think Lent coming so early in the year, it was like it sneaked up one me.  I confess that is the best argument I have and I'm sticking with it. I my defense, for other reasons I was very prayerful over the last few weeks, but not on account of lent. So there has been a spiritual dimension to my recent life. I could tell you that I am going to give this up or that up for the rest of Lent but I won;t go there. I am not going to make any such promises. I will however remain prayerful for others and their various difficulties this time of year.

The presidential election is in full swing and I am tired of Donald Trump. I confess it would not matter if we were not in the midst of the campaign season. I find his verbiage to be counter productive to the health of our democracy. I find him thoughtless, rude, disrespectful, bullying, racially inflammatory and that is just the start. If I keep on I'll still be writing about this in time for next weeks confession. I want it to stop. I want him to stop. Alas I am powerless to end his rhetoric, and I acknowledged this and move on.

I have been a basket case for some weeks now awaiting word on a program I applied for (related to writing) and I have heard that I was not chosen.  This is my third attempt and  I have been told in the past that  my application and work made it to consideration and have been encouraged to reapply.  I want in this program so badly and I have to say that each time the wait is excruciating.  The aftermath is disappointing. I confess that it makes no sense but  upon learning again that  I missed getting selected I basically wanted to just stop writing. Then I wanted to just stop submitting work, just write and throw it in a drawer or something like that. I cannot stop writing, it's too much a part of who I am. But I could maybe decide to just decide to write for myself and nothing more.

I confess that  every once and a while there is something that causes me to question why I should be writing. It's happened numerous times. Usually it is because I'm in a funk and haven't written anything promising in a while. But this is different. I actually  had pulled out of a writing  slump and was going well. I just saw this as a real opportunity to grow even more and learn from the experience.

As a Capricorn I tend to want to be organized. I confess that I am well aware that there is a difference between craving organization and living it.  At work I have used a Franklin Planner System for maybe 20 years or more. Recently I've been exposed to the Bullet Journal and I have now tinkered with it for two months. I am starting to feel more comfortable with it. So much so, that  I've ordered on of the specific Bullet Journals this past week as they became available again. I had been using my own makeshift one, but starting win March I will begin to use the new journal.

In my mailbox this evening was the March/April edition of The Writer's Chronicle. I believe I will wrap this confession up for the night and read a bit in it - the finish off the evening  writing.

Till next time,

The Muse be with you!

Confession Tuesday in Neon

Dear Reader:

It's been one widow upgrade (actually two), and a week since my last confession.

I dislike upgrades. I confess I'm not really fond of IT people either. It's nothing personal, it's just that....  well, did you ever read Who Moved My Cheese?  Yeah,  my computer, be it at home or work is like my cheese and you don;t want to move it.

So this past weekend I took mo mother's laptop and upgraded it to Windows 10.  I also upgraded my 8.1 to 10. I never liked 8 anyway so there was that incentive to change. I mean I had become used to it and I mostly was concerned about losing shit in the shift but everything went okay. I confess that no computers or people were harmed in the process.

I've written some poems this week. By that I mean that I have taken pen & paper or in some instances laptop and composed drafts that survived on their own. They remain rough but they are not on life support. They are kinds of making it on their own merit. After rewrites they will be released into the world to hopefully find a home of their own.  I confess this is important because sometimes I get in a funk and the screwy notion gets into my head that I have written my last poem. That I will never ever be able to make one work again. I thought this must be a unique feeling but I recall reading an autobiography of Randall Jarrell in which his wife talked about him reaching such a point. So i guess unique? Not so much.

I feel like there are three neon lights that keep blinking inside my head. One is something writing related I have applied for. One is Spring Training. And the third is Valentines Day.  So I confess that these items are distractions. If you see me and I look like I'm in another world altogether, I'm probably just getting high on neon lights.

Confession Tuesday - Messenger Bag Edition

It's been one long night of watching the first Presidential Caucus, one GOP debate without Trump, one month ending and another month beginning, one poetry submission acceptance that I totally missed for months, and two weeks since my last confession.  To the Confessional...

Dear Reader:

My mood these past two weeks has been about like the stock market. If you've followed it, it's been up one day, down another. If you haven't followed it, well it's been the same.

So the other night I realized that I had a poem accepted last year that appeared in Nude Bruce Journal (see blog post yesterday) and this was an up and down event in one. I was excited when I learned that it had made it into print, bummed that I had somehow missed the notification and did not get to realize it at the time it was happening. All and all it still was better than not having a poem accepted.

I also had a rejection last week. That wasn't all that bad of a thing because I always figure that I have to have a few rejections for every acceptance.  Just a part of the project.

Finished two new poems last week. Felt good about that. I've not  written as much as I should have last week but evidently it was enough to get some good results.

I had a poet visit me in a dream the other night. That has not happened to me in a while, I wish it were more common.

I've feel like I've been hammered by some pretty ugly  social media stuff from a few Bernie Sanders supporters.This negative stuff is messing with my overall attitude.  I don't mind people expressing their support for a candidate other than mine, but there has been some pretty crappy hype on Facebook and Twitter including a lot of out and out lies. These people are doing no favors for Bernie. I've followed him for several years now and I don;t think he'd approve of some of the stuff from some of his supporters. I think he is more classy than that.

Finished a book by Rachel Mennies and it has gone on to my pile of books to review. The only thing it seems larger than the pile of books to review is the pile of ones I still want to read.

I got a new leather messenger bag for my birthday and it is pretty cool. I'm trying to compartmentalize what I carry around with me and try and lessen the load. This bag is going a long way to helping with this. This makes me happy,

I'm stumbling around on a chapbook project that is causing me some consternation. I'm kind of counting on some mental breakthrough on a specific poem that is a part of the project.  Looking for some good Karma here....

That's it for this Tuesday.  Stay safe and come back next week.!

An Accepted Poem, and I Missed It... Go Figure

So I went to Submittable last night to check on something and discovered quite by accident that  one of three poems I had submitted to Nude Bruce Review last year (yes, I said Nude Bruce)  was actually accepted in August. Woot!

I feel like a fool for missing it. I don't usually check Submittable for results, instead watch my e-mail. This reply went to an old email address that I am you using for writing related stuff any more.

The poem titled Without You is located on page 86  of the Spring Issue or Issue 5 CLICK HERE and scroll to the page.