Fledglings and Manuscript Scramble

91º on our way up to 100º, though we're supposed to drop down to highs of 90 or so by mid-week, bright, bright sun, a good breeze, and branching fledglings


Our baby robins are fledglings!  There are three chicks.  One has made its way out onto a branch quite far from the nest; one hops out of the nest and back in; the third is still nest-bound.  I've tried to get some pictures, but the quality is poor, although I'll share the best of them.  This busy day in the tree is providing a bit of distraction to the poetry work going on (explained below).

Oldest fledgling, wandering a bit far from the nest

Two chicks left in the nest

 I'm not patient enough to learn to use a quality camera, but on days like this, I wish I were!

I've been away from the blog for a bit, helping to celebrate the marriage of two close friends and then having them as house guests.  A true joy.

Now, I'm settling back into my routine.  I've been fussing over the old manuscript, In a World Made of Such Weather as This, as I received the no-go news from two presses over the past week.  As most of you know, there was a massive reorganization of this manuscript last fall, and that reorganized version is still out at ten presses, so all my fussing could be for naught.  I'm good with that.  Knowing that if the book is picked up at one of those ten presses I'll be overjoyed, but also knowing that maybe there is something about the order that is holding the book back, I read it through cover to cover again today with an eye to organization.

The result, I added four poems that fit the themes and don't fit where I'm going now.  I titled my sections as a way to clarify why I have sections and as a way to think about the order.  Finally, I switched section one and section two around and might have moved one poem out of each established group.  I also switched the order of a few poems within section one. 

In other words, I fussed.

Of course, I still have the old order saved on my computer, so if I regret these decisions tomorrow, no harm no foul.

Perhaps I just needed to do something with this angsty state of mind.

Interestingly, a few days before I got the call from Anhinga about Blood Almanac, I'd pretty much gutted it and reorganized. Will history repeat?

My patience appears to be lacking in book publishing as well as in learning photography.


Finally, in the time it took me to write this post, that second chick abandoned the nest altogether, although it is stationed quite near, in a secure nook.  I'm pretty sure I can see the first one, out there on the thin limb, growing as I type.  This world is AMAZING!!!