Tag Archives: editors

A Post I didn’t mean to write

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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.

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Dylan Thomas Alderney £5 coin

Happiness and Haibun

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I’ve just had a rejection letter from an editor.

My current levels of happiness are such that I have offered him my sincere thanks for his feedback and have already rewritten one of the pieces to send elsewhere later this week.

I am seriously worried about my levels of positivity.

It’s not natural, it’s not me and I know it will all end in tears. I’m wondering if I’m associating with too many Americans. What with Pollyanna and a can-do attitude you lot ought to be quarantined.

I am, of course, a little bit annoyed at the rejection because I’ve clearly sent out sub-standard work and I need to tighten up on it. Fortunately the feedback I was given made the rewrite on one of them quite easy. That will be going to an editor who has never accepted anything from me before. It is very likely to be rejected again, because I don’t think the two of us are on the same wavelength, but you never know…

I’ve actually looked back on one or two posts that mention rejection and seem to have taken it in my stride. However, there was one double rejection that I had, which did stop me in my tracks for a few weeks. I can’t find any mention of it in the blog and may have kept it to myself. That’s how you look successful – talk about the acceptances and gloss over the rejections.

 

I have had, if I remember rightly, I’ve had nine acceptances and six rejections in the 12 months since I started sending things out. It’s all written down but it’s in another room and I’m lazy. As I started off with three rejections the average isn’t looking too bad.

In some ways, acceptance is worse than rejection. Every time I’m accepted I worry about if I’ll ever manage it again, or if editors will ever realise I actually don’t have a clue about what I’m doing.

The key to a good haibun is, it seems, a good haiku, which should be the first thing you write. Well, that’s what a number of well-respected people have said on more than one occasion. It makes sense. You should not, they add, start writing haibun until you are having haiku accepted regularly by reputable journals.

If I’d known that in the beginning I’d never have written haibun. In truth, I started writing them because my haiku are rubbish and I was hoping to conceal this by hiding them in a chunk of prose.

My writing method is to write the prose and then wait, sometimes for weeks, until a thought for the haibun presents itself. If I make a half-decent attempt the editor often suggests improvements, which I immediately agree to.

It may not be the classic method but it seems to work.

 

 

Good News and Loose Ends

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I had some good news yesterday.

You may recall from a previous post that I’ve been worrying about various things. I’ve also noted a few loose ends – in the Bakewell post I said I’d explain why I was using the old camera, but I didn’t.

That’s easy – the socket on the new camera is getting a bit slack and it can be tricky  when downloading by plugging it directly into the computer. As the card reader on my laptop doesn’t work, and there is no card reader on my work computer I tried the old camera as I may start using it for work. Plug-in card readers always seem to fall apart so I have stopped buying them.

Another loose end – Number One Son and the cancelled trip to Innsbruck. Easy Jet are going to refund him for the flight and the Air BnB people have given him a 100% refund as they sympathised with his situation. That only leaves the flight home (Ryan Air) and the loss of the holiday but as he says – the flight home is a small price to pay and though he did miss the holiday he fitted in a day trip to Brighton and was amazed by the kindness of the Air BnB hosts, so it’s all good.

One thing I was worried about, after a couple of acceptances, was that I wouldn’t be able to live up to that standard again. As a result I’ve been messing around with haibun instead of finishing them, and feeling they weren’t good enough to send. I also missed the chance of a few submissions because I didn’t think I had anything good enough to send.

In some ways, having things accepted has been worse for my confidence than having things rejected.

Anyway, I finally got fed up with my pathetically defeatist attitude and sent three more submissions off on Christmas Eve. During the afternoon of Christmas Day I was surprised to see I had a reply, which seemed very quick, very dedicated and, let’s be honest, was bound to be a rejection because acceptances take longer than that.

At least I had the monkey off my back.

However, I was wrong and I’ve just had another acceptance. I’ve also been given advice. This is good, as editors are busy people and everyone agrees that getting feedback is a good sign.

As a result I’m feeling far too pleased with myself. I really need to learn how to cope with acceptance a little better. I also need to alter that haibun I wrote about editors.

I also need to review the advice I gave about people boasting in Christmas Letters as I now find I’m not quite sure of the boundary between reporting success and boasting.

Haiku Challenge – Day 27 – Ups and Downs

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I was going to post a couple of days ago when it was day 25. This would have been quarter of the way through, but I was diverted and didn’t get on with it.

However, if I had updated at that time I wouldn’t have been able to include details of my latest rejection, as mentioned yesterday. Nor would I have been able to contrast reality with my comment in the previous report. I said:

“However, I’m not going to make any boastful claims just now. I’m going to send some of the new haiku off over the next few weeks and see if any editors like them.”

It’s fortunate that I didn’t make any boastful claims, as I did send some off to an editor, and the editor returned them. It’s difficult to tell, but I suspect this indicates my haiku writing hasn’t improved as much as I thought.

Set against that, there is the Autumn edition of Wales Haiku Journal. Near the bottom of the page is my first published haiku. It’s under the name of Simon Wilson rather than Quercus, but it is me. If I was going to lie about it I’d have chosen a better one…