Saturday Comes Early for Me

The Weekend started early for me today.  I took vacation time starting at noon. Stopped and got chicken on the way home and had lunch with my wife.

It's marvelous outside and countless birds are in agreement. I've heard them from my studio chirping and when I walked out to see if the mail had come I sent maybe six birds flying  from a bush out front.

This week I've launched a new blog site. The Journal of Creative Exploration. This site is intended to follow my creative path as a poet using the Poet Tarot Cards from Two Sylvias Press. Right you you can get your own set of Poet Tarot Cards by backing  Two Sylvias Press on Kickstarter.

Looking forward to a busy weekend. As always, tomorrow is Submission Saturday for me.  Expect to do reading and writing this weekend. I'm fired up and ready to burn!

First Submission Saturday of the New Year

My muse is reminding me that I need to  whip out some new submissions. Thankfully I have a couple of new pieces ready. Gotta get crack'n or she gets pretty pissed.

Have you submitted any work yet this year?

Submission Saturday....

It's my last Submission Saturday of the year and I will be sending out material but also following the advise of these guys... how about you?

Let The Day Begin

Meeting the morning sun along with a crow that can be distinctly heard from my office. I don't know if he is celebrating the new day or hearkening me to get my butt in here and start my day.

I came home last night exhausted and ate and we settled in to watch a movie and called it a night.  I do feel an energy building slowly like a steam engine in my body and I have the knowledge that having a three day weekend is an opportunity; one I intend to use wisely.

So I start the day... Submission Saturday planning to get my submissions out and get some writing done.  I've got some older stuff I need to work on.  It was Justice Brandeis who said, "There is no great writing, only great rewriting," something I would do well to always keep in the back of my mind as a guide.

As I post this... I say, let the day begin...

Submission Saturday....

It always feel so good when I'm finished with Submission Saturday.

• last 12 months - 66 
• submissions still pending 24
• accepted still pending publication 2

Submission Saturday - On Deck

I set up a folding table on the deck moments ago and brought my laptop out. There is sun on the far end of the deck but I'm where I can catch some shade for a while anyway. 

I brought the dogs out... Mo is sun bathing on the deck and Klaus is watching me dutifully. Barry is... well he's out of sight doing his own thing. He's a dachshund, I wouldn't expect anything else. 

And so begins Submission Saturday... it starts with the shade with a cool breeze. Who knows how it will end.  

Submission Saturday Starts in 30 Minutes

I've got to shift some files from one laptop to the other or work from my old laptop to do submission Saturday today. Yes, that  ads a layer of work moving stuff, and maybe I'll just use the today to complete this weeks submissions. Still, I do need to get some stuff moved.

It sucks when you have work out that is waiting someplace you'd like to see if  find a home and don't want it to submit it any place else till you here back.  I do a lot of simultaneous submissions but there are pieces that I really want to control more where they might end up. Getting picky I guess.

Submission Saturday

It's been a morning of submission. Normally I submissive to the publication Gods in the afternoon on Saturdays but I did a morning gig today and it feels good to have it over with.

One rejection letter so far this week. It was a journal I had not tried before.

I have a poem that I am nearly ready to move out of the draft garage this week and park it with the other work that I submit from.  I've got several    drafts that are keepers that are approaching that same nearly ready for prime time status but I don't like to push these along too fast as much as I'd like to.  I have I've always believed in that I've sent to several journals without success and I am thinking of messing around with it some more to see if I can get a new perspective on it before I send it out again.

Hey Hey it's Saturday...

 So what's the big deal?

Ok, the big deal is this... I started organizing myself so that I do my submissions on Saturday. I just finished this week's. Yeah!

Last week was the start of this new plan/habit. Maybe it's too early to call it a habit yet, but I have accomplished my planned submissions now two Saturdays in a row. In addition, last Saturday I was an over achiever and submitted someplace in addition to my plan.

Now about the plan. I am trying to plan at least three months in advance. That assures a couple of things. Each quarter of a year I now want I need to do for that period of time. Since I check the reading dates I can make sure I'm getting material to the various Journals and venues that I want to be in and not miss their deadlines or like I've often done, realize on Friday night that a deadline is two or three days away and I've given no thought to what I'd be sending so in the pressure of it all I say, "F it" and just let it pass.  "F it" is a well developed form of procrastination for me.

So you see, this not only affords me better control over my calendar of submissions but it also assures that I have time to explore the best fit for my work. Let's face it, if you don't take the time to explore best options and you just slap together three to five poems and send the out, can you really be surprised when they come back in your face rejected?  If you want an editor to truly take time to consider your work, take some time and be thoughtful about what might be a best fit for the Journal you are submitting to. Are you always going to nail it? No, but it's better then throwing the spaghetti noodles on the wall to see if they stick.

I've said it before, I hate submitting work. I'd rather write then submit. But no one has ever come up to me and said "Hey, give me something, anything and I'll publish it." And if they did, I might not want to be in what they just published.

So from now on, if it's Saturday, It's Submission Saturday! I've actually felt good these past two Saturdays after achieving my submission objective. So maybe I'll start to like this thing. Or, at least not hate it so much.

In both instances I've felt so good when I was finished, since I was at my laptop I just kept on working either with rewrites or starting new stuff.