A little poem and what I have been up to…

somewhere between heart and home,
the iron in blood sees itself
also in stone, in earth beneath feet

we are as bound to landscape
as are tendons to muscle
as tied to hearth as we are to wander

© Sarah Whiteley

Things have been quiet on the blog-front, I know. I sailed right on past the 9-year anniversary of this blog without taking time out to acknowledge it. But I have been feverishly working on piecing together a full-length manuscript for submission. November saw me buckling down with the goal of writing 60 new drafts of poems (yes, 60!). I didn’t quite make it, but made it as far as 50, which is a huge achievement for me.

I’ll be spending the next couple of months honing these poems, polishing them, probably hating parts of them, and loving them all to pieces. But now that the big push is done with for the moment, I’m hoping to revisit posting to the blog a bit more. It’s always been a great tool to keep me writing!

Thud

Well, the expected Thud! arrived last Thursday. Am I disappointed? Yes. But I’m not in the least discouraged. It doesn’t exactly feel good to get a rejection, but strangely enough, I don’t feel bad about it either. It feels more like an inevitable step in the process and my first official rejection is like a milestone.

I haven’t yet decided whether to re-submit the same piece to another publication. Leaning toward yes, and I already have one or two places in mind from my short-list. It feels good to try at any rate, and as long as it continues to do so, I believe I’ll continue to submit my work.

I have officially sent out my first submission for consideration. I have no grand illusions of success. Afterall, this is a first attempt. And I sent it off to a very lofty height indeed – one bound to end in a thump. My poor, poor cover letter sat relatively naked, with no prior publication credentials whatsoever with which to clothe it… I imagine other cover letters will point and laugh.

But there it is. I’ve sent it. My first real try at serious publication and I’m proud of myself for taking the step. And I’ll try very hard to remind myself of that when the inevitable thump comes.