Shifting Focus Because Real Artists Ship

I haven't been here much since August. Correction. I haven't been here at all since August. Once the school year started, as happens most years, the weekday hours were spent at school teaching, grading, prepping lessons, and recovering. The weekends are full with the parenting of two kids, so even though I made some tough choices and stopped coaching this year, my writing took a hit. I was still getting up early most mornings to get the words on the page, but over the summer my focus shifted from producing new work to revising, editing, and submitting work into the world.

art by Stately Type 

This has been a long time coming. It's embarrassing to have so many files, drafts, excerpts, collections, selections, poems, essays, novels, and memoirs gathering digital dust, so I set a goal over the summer to submit to 50 small presses, contests, or journals before the end of the year. This push came from the consistent urging of Women Who Submit, a community that inspires women to submit their work by posting resources and hosting submission parties. A particularly inspiring essay by Xochitl-Julissa Burmejo on "Building Up to Emerging," helped me set this goal, and my writing partner, Hazel Kight Witham, joined me on this crazy submission blitz.

I'm at 37 submissions as of right now, and I wish I could say the acceptances poured in, but I have gotten fairly used to receiving passes. I try not to take any of them too personally, and I'm learning as I go.

I have a few new publishing credits: two poems at The Rising Phoenix Review: "Resistance" and "What Were You Doing." I have an essay forthcoming from Meridian. Hazel has also found success with credits at The Rising Phoenix Review, Flash Flash Click, and Binary Review. I've also posted fewer blogs, and the third installment of the memoir, Notes from a High School Feminist, continues to gather digital dust. I haven't read as much either, but it has been very good for me to get used to putting my work out there. After all, "Real Artists Ship." ~Steve Jobs

And I still have a few more weeks to hit fifty.