Slogging Through

These days it seems that life could not possibly get any busier. While I've been finding time to read in the evenings, I'm sad to say my writing time has dwindled a bit. Still scratching out those first drafts in the hopes something will grow and bloom.

I'm suffering from a string of rejections and trying to remember all the peppy advice I give friends in their time of need. Some of these poems have been out since August, and so I had begun to hope they were in the "final rounds" of readings, and in some cases they were, but to no avail. In particular, I have a core group of poems that are the foundation from my new book. These have not been snatched up in quite the way I had imagined they would be. A few of the poems I had considered on the fringe of the group were gobbled up in October & November, which makes me wonder if I'm not seeing the core group clearly. The other trouble could be that they are a series and clearly linked by title & subject matter. Perhaps I need to separate them out during the submissions process? All good things to think about.

While I'm thinking, I'm eating Russell Stover chocolates from a big heart-shaped box, which was clearly marketed as a gift for my dearest, but which I purchased intentionally for myself because sometimes a girl just needs her chocolate.