Tag Archives: work rate

I’ve Done It Again

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It’s now seven days until the end of the month and a large number of submissions still need work. I also need to get my first draft done for the talk, so I can check the USB works this time. Last time, I was lucky as I had plenty of examples. This time I don’t have so much to pass round. I’ve had two years to sort this out and I am still not sure if the USB will work – this is poor organisation of the highest order.

Soda bread with spring onion and cheese. And possibly garlic, I can’t tell from a photo. No new photos of lambs or puppies so I am falling back on bread.

So, here I am. A talk needs writing and testing, a month’s poetry needs submitting and I have other bits and pieces to do. Plus, I am still not feeling 100%. The good thing is that I know it’s all my fault. No external circumstances, no excuses, nobody else involved. It’s the best way, because I don’t need to waste time on excuses. I am going to get going and a week from now I will have amazed myself by all the work I have done.

This may not include reading other blogs as time and energy are limited, but I will catch up the week after.

It is better, I think to peer into the future and see a bucket of writhing eels which all need taming, rather than to look into a bucket and see a solitary pond snail in my future.

It may not be the best selected metaphor, but I’m warming up for poetry and these things creep in. However, I’m sure you get the gist.

And, as the first casualty of my need for industry is word count, I will cut it at 250 and go to do something else.

Plain soda bread with butter. The addition of butter doubles the size of my repertoire.

The Day Drags to a Close

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Gatekeeper

Another day and another set of excuses. After reading more of the Terry Pratchett biography I thought of writing an autobiography, but it soon passed. I’m having enough trouble keeping up with a blog and a bit of poetry. Add a talk for the Numismatic Society and a historical whodunit and I definitely don’t have the time or the energy. And, as a final point, I’m not famous, successful, on reality TV. or the possessor of either an abusive or criminal past. so I really have little to offer in the way of subject matter.

Mint Moth

That, of course, is the lesson to be learned from Terry Pratchett – he never seemed to stop writing once he went full time. So far today, I have written what the counter on this blog tells me is 133 words. I’ve also replied to a few comments and done another 150 words that I deleted. And written a haiku to finish off a haibun I want to submit in a  couple of days. That’s it. It’s not an impressive work rate.

I don’t even know why I’m not happy. My time is my own, I have plenty to do, and I am being paid to stay away from work. This should be the best time in my life. I do know it won’t get much better. Julia just told them at work that she will be leaving at the end of September. Once October arrives I am likely to find myself living in a less relaxed way, and having a lot more little jobs to do.  I’d better start appreciating how lucky I am.

Comma

Photos are from July 2015. It all seems so long ago, and there seemed to be more butterflies.

I Have a Problem

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My positive thinking campaign has paid off so far. I have written more and have submitted to two magazines that I have a patchy record with, one that has always turned me down and one I have never submitted to before. So far, two have replied and both accepted something – one senryu and one Haibun. These were, to be fair, the magazines that had published me before, even if it was not a regular thing. I’m now waiting to see what happens with the other two. It could be months yet, as neither are particularly speedy.

Unfortunately, though I’m doing more work, I am also finding myself bogged down by admin. Some of it is out of proportion to the increased workload. I could keep track of most stuff I was doing with just a brain and a piece of paper but now I’m picking up the work rate and increasing the submissions I am having to keep better records. My brain is marginal at the best of times but give it four new magazines, and the  30 extra poems and I am struggling to keep up.

So far this year I have made 38 submissions. By the end of the year it will be about 50. It’s a long way from the hundred I used to talk about as a target, but it’s near enough one a week, which seems quite a lot when you are the one doing the writing. I don’t know how the woman who wrote the article managed a hundred.  I just looked it up. She was actually aiming for 100 rejections a year. However, all she got was  43, and five acceptances. Lightweight! Makes my submission record, in a lazy year, look quite good.

Today has been mainly taken up with sorting out two submissions, working out my paperwork system, cookery, reading blogs and  drinking tea. Well you need some relaxation time don’t you? I think I have things sorted now, but it’s been a struggle.

It’s now time to complete a blog post telling you all how hard I am working.

Ooops! I just realised that the first meeting of the Numismatic Society is taking place on 11th and I wanted to put on a small display of some local items. I hve the items (mostly) bu I now have a week to do the research. It’s going to be a bit tight.

The Numismatic Society starts again. Can winter be far behind?

Oh, the problem? Time. It’s always time . . .

 

 

Stuck for a Subject

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It’s 23.22 and I have made a late start. I have also made two false starts, one on the subject of writer biographies and one on the subject of aiming for 100 rejections.

I have a strong dislike of biographical notes in poetry magazines, because I really don’t give a toss for the lives of the various poets that appear in the magazines I subscribe to. I don’t read them because I am interested to know that A spent twenty years in teaching or B has a degree in Creative Writing. I read them because they write something worth reading. I am at one with the editors who don’t do notes on the grounds that the magazine is about poetry.

I’m not against talking about myself, as you will know if you read the blog regularly, but I am against writing about myself when I’m trying to get poetry published. There are too many dull biographical notes, including ones that are just lists of publications, and I don’t see any need to add to them.

Anyway, I have nothing interesting to say.

I’m currently deciding on the look for the photograph one magazine has asked me for. Do I take a selfie as I am? That will, as Julia points out, establish me as a man in the tradition of W H Davis, the tramp poet. Though, strangely, he always looks well-groomed in all the photos you see of him. Or do I  shave my head, trim my beard and end up looking like the idiot brother of Ming the Merciless? It’s not an easy choice, and it doesn’t change my writing, just the opinion people have of me.

Then there is the question of the 100 rejections. It’s really about upping the number of submissions and aiming high. That, so far, is where I have failed. I only made four submissions last month and so far this month have only submitted one thing. I have several other submissions in the planning stage but I doubt I’ll manage more than four this month, as I don’t have the finished material to send. It hasn’t helped that I’ve slowed down this month, just when I really needed to get a move on.

When I started writing poetry I didn’t realise that so much of my writing life would revolve around haircuts, autobiography and planning. I thought it was all about writing. Silly me.

Robin on a Fence

Chaffinch on the same fence