Warning – this post may contain smugness and inappropriate levels of self-satisfaction. I have also invented a new (to me ) form of humblebrag –
Do you realise how much time it takes emailing editors to thank them for accepting your work? I’ve had to do it three times in the last three days and it’s hard finding time to actually write the poems.
That’s. of course, an exaggeration, as i’d be happy to spend all day thanking editors, and in truth it only took about ten minutes in total. I tend, like editors to have a fairly standard reply, because after “thank you” there isn’t much to say.
The story is that I have spent the last few days hammering away at the keyboard. I did this because I am lazy and disorganised and only work when under threat of a deadline. Even then, the “work” of writing poetry doesn’t compare to cleaning out a chicken she in November, or cutting lawns in the middle of summer. Anyway, I managed six submissions in the last four days (they were written but not finished.
One had an acceptance within 24 hours. I have already written about that. This morning I had an email to tell me someone had accepted three poems from yesterday’s submissions (which is a high level of editor industry and well beyond the call of duty. This evening I switched the computer on and found two more had been accepted. That had taken several days, which is still stunningly speedy considering editors also have day jobs and get piles of poetry sent to them.
Obviously, I’m happy and grateful, and, as you may have noticed before, success is a double edged sword, as I start to worry about repeating it. However, it goes deeper than that. It’s 12 months since I had cellulitis and the associated sepsis, and about eleven since I had Covid. It has taken all that time for me to get going again and to feel I am back up to standard.
What a great post. I am so happy for all of your successes! And proud of you for your persistence.
Thank you. I am now more enthused and looking for new challenges. I have also been eating oily fish, which proves you can do anything if you set your mind to it.
😂
🙂
Excellent news. “I have spent the last few days hammering away at the keyboard” scared me at first until I realised that your breaking in of the new computer must have been fixed
Yes, the new computer set-up owes more to Heath Robinson than it does to the sleek IT you see on TV but it is working. 🙂
The world is your oyster now! Well done.
Wonderful!!!!
🙂 Thank you.
Congratulations on the new acceptances, and I am glad to hear you are feeling better and getting back on your feet. These health setbacks can take time to recover from, but you are on the way up! That is all good news!
Thanks Lavinia. It’s the first time I’ve taken such a long time to recover from anything – made worse by the fact I wasn’t sure if I I had anything to recover from or whether I was just getting older. 🙂
This is so true! It’s hard to know if you just have to accept the new levels of incompetence or if you have to plough through and beat it.
Things are there to be beaten, though it’s nice not to have to do too much. 🙂
8That is a good humblebrag. Sometime in the future I hope to use that word for myself
I was pleased to find it myself, but wary of doing it. 🙂 Good luck with finding a use for it – always nice to use a new word.
My best friend gave me that word a little bit ago. It’s a good one.
🙂