This morning I woke up at 4:45 AM from a dream about my recent ex-employer. The business had become a smashing success and they had just opened their brand new building which was a really neat New-tech high-rise situated among a neighborhood of 1 story buildings. A Sim city anomaly.

There were appearances from two of the three founders of the company and my role was something akin to being a sort of building Vanna White, showing off all the cool features and talking about security. But at the same time both Greg and Brian were trying to convince me to come back to work for them again. So a fairly mixed message from the maker of dreams this morning. Either way, I’m saying “no way” to that noise.

I did not fall back asleep. I woke up feeling well rested and did not have a headache which has been the norm these days. Instead of laying there, I decided to capitalize on the extra time by sneaking off to my office to update the GLR website. Each week we (actually our media manager and podcast creator) publishes a new episode of a podcast with content from Interviews with our contributing artists. So each week on Friday I update our landing page and sound bites page with related teaser language, an image of the author, and links.

This morning I also did a little more work/research into the CLMP firecracker awards. We’re putting in for best debut lit mag in 2020. I really think we’ve got a good shot at winning. I mean, the competition is pretty stiff, considering that we are among about 50 other publishers (yes really that many). 😱

Any publisher that was started in 2018, 2019, and 2020 is eligible and according to my calculations there’s about 8 new sites opening each quarter. These stats have not been verified, but I do have it on good authority that there are currently about 7000 publishers in the United States alone. E-gads!

In any case, I’ll be finishing our “Submission” for that award today. I mean, submissions have become my new thing. I pulled the trigger on two new ones yesterday. One of which included a brand new poem. The place I was submitting to had a theme and I took an old poem (one that I wrote in 2018 at my first MFA residency) and revised it to something shiny and new.

It’s not even the same poem. The controlling metaphor, rhetoric, and most of the lines were modified. Come to think of it, I’m not sure a single bit of it remained the same. That took a lot of my time yesterday, but was very satisfying. And I came away from that with some new ideas for other poems, which is great (and really something that’s been sorely lacking as of late).

Listening to the GLR podcast this Morning also made me feel better about the “Rut” I’ve been in with new writing. Author James Penha describes writing about the same things again and again as a theme and not a rut. I’m down with that!

From my perspective, as writers we are told too often to write everyday and always push for good steady habits and this sometimes leads to unrealistic expectations. And unrealistic expectations often leads to a feeling of failure when those expectations are not achieved. It’s a difficult time and we need to be kind To ourselves.

Truly we should be this way even in good times. I say this to myself as much as I’m saying it here. Too often, I’m too hard on myself. The podcast reinforced that “ok” right now is pretty good. It was a great interview. We’re doing good and my intentions are to keep moving forward with new ideas, contests, and potentially using the platform to support some good causes. Yeah, I’ve got big plans.

It’s not going to happen without some more effort though. I have a full set of stuff to get done today including finishing that firecracker award sub, putting together a proposal for our first contest, and speaking with an advisor on running a non-profit. Yeah. Sorry Greg and Brian but this volunteer side-gig is my new full time project.

In other news (for folks that are still with me) is that yesterday was satisfying for more than just one reason. Mid-day I received an email letting me know that the print book containing one of my poems has been released on Amazon. The digital/Kindle version of Verses from the Plains: A Poetry Collection, published by the Nebraska Writers Guild is now available and the print book will be up in a few days. That’s pretty exciting!

These publishing processes take sooooo loooonnnggg. I’ve been waiting since the acceptable came in summer. I suppose in the grand scheme it’s not that long, but it sure feels like it was forever ago. Despite my distaste for social media, it’s probably worth a post and a link. Might even update my profile pic today in anticipation of the announcement.

Aaaaannnnd… as if that wasn’t enough, I also got an acceptance yesterday from another print publication, Wingless Dreamer, who is putting out a book that is “Covid” themed. I have written exactly one poem about the pandemic. Submitted that and “waaaalaaa!” Sweet sauce!!

That publisher operates mostly through contests, and only one person wins the contest (which includes a cash prize), but all the accepted artists pieces are included in the collection. They are announcing the winner on November 2nd. Squeeeeee.

In light of ALL that, I’m pretty pumped today. And need to capitalize on the feeling and motivation to carry me through this Friday and the weekend— Halloween, Samhain (which I just learned about yesterday), the full moon, and having a house full of teenagers!

Cheers, 🎃
~Miss SugarCookie