Awww Lawdy! What’s this now? I’ve got like a million-gazillion goings going on including moving my daughter back from Lincoln today, dealing with AC out at the house, an important TGLR meeting tomorrow, and this Noom nonsense I’ve committed to doing this week. 

Why on Earth with all this, would my brain turn to a completely different topic for today’s exercise session? But the brain wants what the brain wants, right? 🧠 🤔

First, I would say that it probably wants to contemplate publishing because I just pulled the trigger on sending a full book of poems to a prospective publisher. It takes a lot of nerve to continue to do this because of all the rejection. 

In the last four years I’ve continued to work on this book AND have put a huge amount of effort into getting the poems in the book published. At this point, over half of them have found homes and the rest are being saved for the publisher who is going to publish the book. 

That’s pretty presumptuous, but I still have a high degree of confidence that the book will eventually be picked up by a publisher. I wouldn’t keep sending it out if I didn’t think it was worthy of being published. It’s important to me and quite frankly that’s all that matters.

A few weeks ago, I got a rejection from a publisher that I really thought was going to love the book. Last week I received another rejection from a place that I truly believed might be “the one.”

Saying “the one” makes this whole business sound a lot like dating. In truth, it really is a lot like dating. Researching publishers is like engaging in a dating app where you can see some info about potential matches and then make a decision to “swipe right” by sending them your poem/story/essay/book.

There is a little thrill of hope in doing this activity. Maybe that’s the reason I’m so keen on doing it. It could be the hope that someone will read my work, and like I said, fall in love with it and decide to swipe right on me by sending an acceptance.

For individual poems, I think I have that down to a science. I’m also not terribly bothered when I get rejected at this level. What do I care? I have 100 other submissions and the chances are that someone out there is going to love my poem.

For full manuscript, though, the rejections hit a little bit harder. I have worked so long on this book and on these poems, it just stings. Even more so when the rejection is a standard form letter with no personalization. Again, for individual poems, I get it. But this is my baby, people. Please just say SOMETHING nice about it. 

One of the editors at Two Sylvias Press said something nice. And that really made my day (my whole week actually). Blue Light Press, on the other hand, said “no thanks” and “keep trying other places.” 

I read “keep trying other places” and interpret this to mean “don’t try us again.” 

Don’t worry. I won’t.

Anyway, so I sent my book (one of my books) out again today with a lovely little cover letter. Fingers crossed. 🤞 

As far as sending more individual poems out, I’m taking a two week break. One week for each acceptance I’ve received recently. Last week I had two… TWO… in the same 48 hour period! 💃💃💃 One was for a poem I wrote two years ago and one was for my most recently written poem. Wild! 

In the spirit of “stopping to smell the roses” I’ve gifted myself with a break. 

In the past few months I’ve been very wishy-washy on what my goals should be. It’s a part of the bigger, overarching question of “what next?” Some days I want to double-down and others I want to quit, but my default is to send one submission a day. That’s probably not healthy. It’s obsessive and the time I spend keeps me from making progress in other areas of my life. So “gifting” myself with this break, and saying that every acceptance should come with a week of celebration, is a great compromise. 

Who knows, maybe before the two weeks are up, I’ll get another and add one more week on to my celebratory break!

AND IF (when) someone accepts one of the three books I have “in-play,” I’ll gift myself a month. Who knows, maybe more! 

I have more thoughts on publishing and the book saga, but my time is up. 

I’ve got to get going with all the rest of the things and stuff. 

Thanks for reading!

☮️ + 💟

~Miss SugarCookie