A Writer's Notebook, Day Six-Hundred-And-Ninety-Five

I've been attempting to consider my publishing situation in ways that might provide some insight.  In the end, the thing that I feel I need is the ability to determine that I am progressing towards my goal.  In this regard, I mean that in terms of publishing in specific.  I can be certain of the quality of a poem and still not know how publishable it is.  That is a different matter, in reality.  A great many writers who we applaud now never had success getting work published in their life, and I do not want to be another of those.  I want to be certain that my work is making it into the world while I am alive to know it is happening.  But, that is not what I was intending to get at.  My point was simply that I am focusing on the question of how I can know I am progressing towards getting published.

Earlier in my efforts, it was easy to see an accumulation of submissions as evidence that I was progressing, because it represented a next step for me.  I had not been sending work out with any regularity, and just doing so is itself an important thing in this journey.  However, now, I am at the point where I am sending work out.  I have more than fifty that have been submitted this year already, and the half that have come back are all rejections.  That is a plateau.  I do not feel that I am progressing, and sending more work just feels like I am in this same place, not moving forwards at all.

What I need is a way to see that I am progressing towards publication, a method to judge that I am getting closer which is not merely based on the idea that it will happen at some point, if I just send out enough stuff.  I do not want to have a career where my central methodology is the same as playing the lottery: just keep entering and hoping you win.  I need to have a way to determine that I am not stuck, that I am getting closer, but that is not anything that I can determine from the quality of my work or from the number of submissions I send out, and their is nothing cumulative about rejections, where I can look at one and see it as a sign that I am now closer.   So, I have come to recognize that the essential question is how to know I am progressing in getting my work closer to publication, and I thought that having a clear understanding of the specific thing I was in need of to feel better as I continue on this journey would give me some direction, but it is also clearly not possible to answer it without information I will never have.

I do not know how to survive in this condition, if I am honest.  Things are terrible enough in the world right now, and I do not have any right to be bitching or complaining about this, in relationship to what is happening around me, but that just makes me feel worse, to be honest.  I am stuck in this condition until it changes, and it is not good for me in any way, but what am I to do?  The only answer that I ever get in terms of taking steps to feel better is to do something "proactive," and no one seems to be able to provide any concrete idea of a proactive step I can take in this regard that is not the same things I am already doing, and now I am here saying the same crap again.

What can I do?  It is impossible for me to change the situation, but I do not know how to remain in the condition I am in, and cannot find a way to alter my own internal attitude in a way that helps.  I have attempted to consider things in different ways, and I do recognize all the realities that make getting work published difficult, but that does not alter my feelings, and I cannot think of anything to do that is genuine, because, for me, that would mean being able to do something that I can see as helping.  I do not know any action I can take right now that I am certain will help me to get closer to my goal, and is not just me doing more of what I already do that has not worked, and all I really want is some way to be certain I am moving forward. 

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 want...
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work....
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....
Read more