Tag Archives: recycling submissions

Day 47

Most of my day was spent thinking about the things I should be doing. When I wasn’t procrastinating I engaged in displacement activity or eating. Julia suggested that I could combine two of my talents and write a book about procrastination. Or eating. And suggested, a trifle unkindly, that if I could combine eating and procrastinating it might be better for my waistline.

I told her I would consider the book, and that I would spend the rest of the day in research.

After lunch she went to have her hair done and when she returned, bearing Bakewell tarts, I forgot to tell her how nice her hair looked. In my defence I would say that two hours on eBay followed by tea and Bakewell tarts had dulled my normally tip-top husbandly instincts.

After that I did some more research. When you are researching procrastination, as I pointed out when asked if I had gone to sleep, it is often difficult to draw a line between research and torpor. Generally, if I have a notebook out, it is research.

Last night, when preparing myself for a serious assault on the world of poetry magazines, I found I had submitted the same poem to two different editors. It is the second time I have done this, despite my best efforts at organising myself. Fortunately they both rejected it, so it wasn’t a problem. I really must do better.

As soon as I finish here I am going to start recycling the rejected submissions from the last month. They have many good points, which I will try to accentuate, whilst removing the bad bits. This is the easy bit, after that I actually have to start working.

 

Day 41

It’s the early hours of the morning and, as usual, I am still up finding odd jobs to do. Yesterday was quite action packed so I’m going to write about it now and may even squeeze another post in today – or lengthen this one in the evening. There are so many options!

I’ve had a couple of emails in the last few days, but nowhere to fit the news in. I made four submissions at the end of January, two of them have now come back with acceptances. Two acceptances is good. It means I am back in the groove and it also means means I have 18 poems back, and can use them again. I will edit and polish and see what happens.

This is why it’s easier to make submissions when you are doing it constantly – there is a constant turnover as submittable material comes back. Some months last year my submissions were entirely poems which had already been out. This is so much easier than having to start from scratch. Admittedly, not all returned poems are fit to send out again, but most of them are, and many of them are used on their second or third attempt. I’ve read interviews by well known poets who have done well with work that has been submitted over 20 times.

Sometimes the talent you need isn’t writing ability but persistence.

Same goes for vegetable stew making. Last week it was appalling, mainly due to the use of putrid parsnips, this week it was excellent, and I had the added pleasure of using the cauliflower leaves from last night as greens to add more goodness to the stew and prevent waste. Why compost it when you can eat it?

I also had a blood test – as I said, it’s all happening! Nobody has rung so I assume I passed. Nobody has rung to complain that I am a week late either, I think we have finally reached an understanding. Next time I also have a liver function blood test to make sure the arthritis drugs aren’t doing me any damage. I hope they aren’t, as I’m reasonably happy with them at the moment.

The picture is snowdrops from 2019. They are out now but I have no new photos. That has been a feature of the days of covid – very few new photos.