A Writer's Notebook, Day Seven-Hundred-And-Twenty-Three

 Despite the current hour, I did get to work early today, and wrote my poems this morning.  As well, I think I had a real breakthrough on that story.  I am still not finished, but I think the pieces are coming together, and I felt that I got through a certain amount of the most difficult material.  It seems very close, and I am quite pleased so far, though I still wonder if it is a bit uneven as a piece right now, but some of the problems in it seem to be things that could only be fixed in revision, when a clearer sense of the whole is attained.  

I received another rejection today and sent out several new packets as well.  Most of it is work that I had sent out before, but I am attempting to keep what hope I can, and the fact that it feels meaningless at the moment doesn't change the reality that the only action I am certain I can take right now is submitting again and again.  I just wish I had a sense that I was making progress in doing that, or that I had some action I could take that I knew could help me get to positive outcomes.  I am stuck and do not know what to do or how to get help at the moment, but I am at least continuing, though it does feel pointless to me a lot of late.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I wanted to make myself do
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-Fifty-Nine

I have been thinking about how I can discuss certain aspects of my poetry and the choices I make as a writer.  In particular, I tend to write without as much reliance on sensory details and descriptions, instead choosing more abstract depictions.  This is something that I know many writers would call an odd choice, as specificity seems inherently to demand the application of detail, but I tend to be a bit hesitant about relying on depictions that utilize the senses, as I find that approach somewhat problematic.  For one thing, sensory description is always going to be less than universal, and not only because of the reality that there are individuals who lack one or more sense.  In many ways, for me, the deeper problem is one related to language itself.  Our use of language creates our experiences in a very real way, though I can't necessarily offer a full explanation of what I mean by that right here, but using a word for an object bestows qualities on it.  If I call something a s
Read more

Poem: Already Over

Already Over Moments pass away faster than we can even notice them: it takes time for the light that hits the eye to be understood as an image, let alone for the body to respond. It may only be fractions of a second, but what we think is now has already ended. Yet, somehow we can act upon this world as if we are present in the present, and not trapped just a few moments in the past.
Read more