The day dawned fair, and far too early. I wanted to turn over and have a lie in as it’s my day off and we weren’t going out but Julia had exacted a promise from me the night before and so I had to get up and take her to breakfast before dropping her off for her first day of jury service.
I am a man of my word.
That meant I was able to get to the jewellers in time for a good two hours of moaning about the state of business before returning home to spend a couple of hours moaning about politics and sport with Number One Son. During this time he heated up last night’s beef rendang for lunch. I am eating well at the moment.
I also had an email to deal with this afternoon. My luck is really out as far as poetry editors is concerned as I just had another rejection. I thought the 3 haibun were all reasonable and had a good chance of success, but it appears I was wrong.
The rejection was accompanied by some notes, which was handy as it’s always nice (though rare) to get feedback. Sometimes it’s probably better to get feedback than it is to get accepted.
I don’t know if any of you have ever noticed this, but I often feel that once you have either posted your work, or hit the send button, it starts to deteriorate.
Even if it is accepted, the polished gem you sent never looks as good when it is printed. And when it is returned it looks even worse. I looked at what was sent back today and looked at the notes and wondered why I’d sent it. The first sentence of the first submission was just so glaringly wrong, yet two weeks ago it had seemed brilliant.
So, apart from writing better, I also have to start looking at everything with a much more critical eye.
Anyway, I had the afternoon off, so I set to work with the suggested improvements and have resubmitted them. Fingers crossed.
This wasn’t the post I meant to write, but it was what emerged on the paper as I started writing. I am not always master of my own keyboard. That, of course, means I have no suitable picture so I’m reusing the Dylan Thomas £5 coin photo. It’s a tenuous poetry connection, but it’s the best I can do. As I read the post where it originally appeared I see this is the second time I’ve used it as a random space filler.
Here’s more information about the coin if you want it -it is quite interesting.
Dylan Thomas Alderney £5 coin
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I’m with Lavinia. Keep polishing. Also keep in mind that the various publications probably get a flood of submissions. And I am not exaggerating. When we published our little magazine, I got so many poetry submissions that I had to stop accepting unsolicited submissions.
Several of them tell you there’s only one or two in a hundred make it. I will probably cover this in tonight’s post, as I’ve jsut had another rejection. 🙂
🙁
I’m with Lavinia. I am still not able to register likes on some sites including yours
Thank you. I’m sure the “like” sistuation will be resolved at some point. 🙂
This morning, I hope. A booked call from a Happiness Engineer 🙂
The smile produced by that news came close to cracking my face. 🙂
It didn’t quite work out as planned 🙂
Does it ever? 🙂
🙂
Being rejected is very sobering indeed. Better luck next time. Thank you for the interesting link about the Dylan Thomas coin.
Thank you. After my speedy rewrites I have been rejected again. I may, as I said to TP, have to go back the Limericks :-).
🙂
🙂
I hope that the polishing bears fruit. I agree about the chastening effect of looking at something with hindsight.
Sadly it seems that they still “aren’t quite there”. I may give up haibun and return to limericks. You know where you are with a limerick. 🙂
Don’t give up. Keep polishing! 🙂
I’m going to dismantle and rewrite. I think part of the problem is that I didn’t have much enthusiasm for some of his suggestions. I also did it there and then because I’m short of time and happened to have an afternoon off yesterday. 🙂