Tag Archives: productivity

The Power of Positive Thinking?

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From January to August this year I made 22 submissions. In September (by the time I have finished two more which are nearly ready to go)  I will have made 11 submissions.

Whether it’s because of recovery from Long Covid, a recovery from self-doubt or because I read The Power of Positive Thinking, I don’t know. But it’s been a productive month.

So far I have had news of one short-listing and three acceptances, so it’s working out OK. It will be two or three weeks before I get much news, as editors normally wait until the end of the submission period before making their decisions. I know that the percentage of acceptances may be a little down, as I’m now submitting to new journals, or ones where I’ve been unsuccessful before, but it’s looking good.

Of course, a lot of things had to fall into place for this to happen, and it may not happen again for a few months. One was that I had to be producing. Two is that I had to have a month with plenty of potential. According to my list, it will December before I get such a month again, so I will have to spend the next couple of months building up a body of work. I’m hoping to avoid a situation like I had this month where I open up work that is “ready” to go and find that it hasn’t been completed. I think I mentioned that in an earlier post. My apologies for repeating myself.

So, to recap. I have just spent most of a post waffling on about writing again, which is often quite dull. On the other hand, my life is dull and this blog represents my life, so you knew what to expect when you started reading.

However, I have also provided and example of how positive thinking made a big difference  to my productivity. This is a lesson that can be applied to any area of life. You may even apply it to doing something useful or profitable. Both these aspects of positive thinking have escaped me but, looking on the bright side, writing keeps me happy and out of Julia’s way (the recipe for a long and happy marriage).

I now feel less dull and more like a public benefactor. See – I said it made me feel happy.

Julia picked the last of the tomatoes today. They have been small but very tasty.

Expect another post later. I am feeling full of words.

More Work, Less Play

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Finally I seem to be getting back in the groove and, for once, actually have things written in advance. Although I had enough for three submissions last night, it still took me the best part of two hours to send them off. Each magazine wants a different format, and even though they want the same information, they want it in different forms and in one case, are very keen that you do it in a very specific order. By the time I’d finished sorting all that out, I then noticed some ways to “improve” the poems one last time. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Anyway, it’s done. I’m planning on making six submissions this month. I’d better get a move on, because one of them closes on 25th and i haven’t started writing it yet. Out of the six, three are to places where I submit regularly. Two are to places I submit to irregularly (I’ve been giving them a miss recently, during my dry spell) and one is to a magazine that has never accepted anything from me, and where I haven’t submitted for about three years.

This is getting back to the old days when it was all about the submissions, and I had plenty of material to send. Recently, with less to send I’ve been playing safe and only submitting to the easy ones. This change of attitude is, I think, the last thing I needed to do to get back to the old way of doing things. All I need now is plenty of ideas. That’s another area where I’ve been struggling but it seems that as my writing is picking up pace, so is the generation of ideas. I have read articles that claim you get more ideas if you write more and so far it seems to be the case.

Of course, I’m a narcissist and I write to see my name in print, so the real test will be to see if I increase my acceptances, not just my workload.

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A Whole New World . . .

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Isn’t it strange how one thing dropping into ,place can open everything up? I know the reverse is often the case, and one thing going wrong can mess a lot of things up, but it doesn’t generally seem as easy going the other way.

Yesterday I finally got round to plugging a keyboard and mouse into my laptop and suddenly I am productive again. Just because it’s called a laptop doesn’t mean that I have to sit in the living room with it on my lap.

The result was three blog posts, plus half a dozen prose pieces written (some with haiku and tanka attached) and a dozen tanka transcribed. I now have enough material to have a serious go at submitting to all the magazines I have listed to target. This feels good.

I also didn’t spend half the night messing about with a fiddly keyboard and a lack of concentration, so I feel better in myself too.

Now that is underway I feel like tackling the broken computer and will be downloading the relevant stuff to rescue it this week so I can get it started again. If that works as claimed I will be able to get all my old work back, which will be even better.

Of course, I have learned nothing and am still not backing up properly, but that’s just how I am. The work I am producing won’t be brilliant either, as it normally takes months to tweak it, but at least I’m back in the game an straining at the leash. This is most unlike me, and particularly unlike me in winter, when I normally go dormant.

I even manged to write most of thi blog post at work before anyone else appeared. this blog post. Four minutes past five and I am about to post my blog for the day. This is not normal.

Featured coin is a Belgian 5 Francs of 1873.