A small triumph and some thoughts on improving

I got two pieces accepted for publication yesterday! One was a flash fiction piece named “Literally” and the poem “Deep Touch”, which is one of my more favorite poems. (The poem above is neither; it’s just an illustration of what I write.)

I anticipate the journal didn’t get too many entries, because this is an inaugural issue of a journal and it’s not a high prestige literary journal. I’ll take it — I don’t write lofty enough for a high prestige literary journal. I also don’t use the modern convention of longer poems. My heroes are Emily Dickinson and ee cummings — they didn’t need more than about 24 lines.

To be honest, though, I wish I could write longer poems. I wish I understood what people are doing in longer poems so I could at least see how they work.

That’s something I wouldn’t have done when I was younger — try to improve. I now have this burning desire to improve everything I write, and I think I have improved to the level of my instruction, which is why I need more instruction.

I will always need more instruction.

Plowing through everything

Saturday morning, and I am wondering what to do with my time. My husband is going to work, and I am done with the following: work for my class in improving my online class; the manuscript in both paperback and kindle; the cover to my book; several advertisements for the book; revamping my new blog; fixing some errors in the new blog …

Oh, yes, I remember now. I need to start plotting Kringle in the Night. Even though it’s still September and NaNo is a month and a half away.

Times like this I wonder if I’m on a hypomania binge because I’m SO productive. I still seem to be sleeping; in fact I slept in this morning.

If this is normal, I’ll take it.

More on New Blog

The new blog is up and running at https://lleachie.wixsite.com/laurenleachsteffens . At the moment, the blog entries are some of my favorite less “personal” items from this blog (i.e excluding the existential dread). I will discuss writing issues, creative writing products and books I publish. It’s definitely a professional blog. I figure I will write in it once a week.

This blog will continue to be daily thoughts, essays about life, and more personal items.

Come by and look at it! Join up1 Read about The Kringle Conspiracy!

Some News — new blog

I will be writing a more professional and less personal blog weekly over at this site. I will continue to write this blog on a near-daily basis because it gives a more personal touch to writing. I will move a few selected entries over to the new site, but the site will focus more on writing and less on personal experience.

This is all part of making a professional presence. Wish me luck.

The Author Jitters

I’ve been focusing too much on the novel. Ok, maybe not too much. I have the cover properly sized and titled and the like, I have copies both for hardback and e-book, I have formatted and proofread (again!) and I’m still worried about whether it’s good enough.

I’m dropping the novel November 1 (not November 15 as I said before). I am way ahead. Once I get my favorite beta reader’s notes in, I could finish the submission. All is good, but I’m still panicking.

I have other things to focus on (besides work, of course). I could start plotting for NaNo in November. I will be writing the sequel to The Kringle Conspiracy, known as Kringle in the Dark. NaNo has a prepping self-guided class that will get me into November in good shape. I just need to focus on them.

I have to be a bit less antsy with this writing thing.

I live to create

In putting together the parts for the book-to-be, I discovered something important about me — I like creating things. Not just for myself, but I like what I create going out to the public in tangible form.

I don’t have the talent to draw, build, or knit. People keep me away from sharp objects like power drills and saws. (With good reason; I once had a power drill fall on my foot.) My kitchen is not organized enough to bake for others, like the woman who makes macarons in town. I can write.

And now it looks like I can publish.

I don’t know if I will put everything I’ve written into self-publishing. I need to see if this book can get traction. I need to see if my queries (now improved) can get traction. But I have time, because I am satisfying a most basic instinct of mine — creating and putting forth into a hopefully irresistible package.

Getting excited about self-publishing

I’m excited about this new book thing.

I think it will be ready for a November launch.I have a cover for it, I have some blurbs to go on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. I have other things to do, but I think I can get them done in time.

I know I will probably not get too many readers. But self-publishing a little book like this breaks a curse I have in my mind that I will never get published. It also breaks me in on how to publish on a low-stakes book. (I consider my more serious books, the fantasy novels, high-stakes.)

And this particular book … Kris Kriegel, the young toymaker with a Santa sensibility, has been with me as a character since high school. The first scene of The Kringle Conspiracy is basically the story I wrote in high school for my creative writing class. That was 40 years ago, and it’s still as relevant now.

So I’m excited, and I’m looking forward to a Kringle Christmas.

I wish I could write modern poetry

I wish I was better at poetry.

If I believe the critiques I get, I quit writing before things get good. That’s not my feeling at all. I don’t want things to drag on; I don’t want to put words in just to put words in. I’m writing moments more than histories.

I cut my teeth on Emily Dickinson, who didn’t even end her poems except with a dash. But that’s not fashionable anymore; poems wander for pages now, and I don’t know how to do that.

I wonder how I can learn to write modern poetry without shelling out a lot of money for a master class or, worse, having to take a real college course.

Poetry, ironically, is what I thought myself the best at, and it’s now what I write the least.

Today is my 57th birthday.

Today is my 57th birthday. I tend to celebrate birthdays by making observations of the previous year, and this time is no different:

I don’t feel 57. I have the heart of a thirty-year-old. Unfortunately, I have the face and body of a 57-year-old.
Writing-wise:

I still have room to improve especially cover letters.
I have options: I can self-publish if I want.

World events:

I knew we were going to have a pandemic; I didn’t count on being this emotionally settled with it.
It truly seems as if the world I had grown up with: women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights — in other words, true equality — is crumbling. I need to find the right way to fight.

Personal life

I broke a curse that I had lived with all my life. I can’t explain it all here, but the situation had all of the hallmarks of a curse. End result: I accept that I am loveable as I am.
It’s really not bad being in one’s fifties — It makes me nervous that I’m closer to 60 than 50, and I can’t believe my high school graduation was almost 40 years ago.
I’m on a pretty even keel emotions wise, for which I am grateful.

In-between the disruption of COVID and the crimes of this political administration, beyond feeling overwhelmed by the changes in the world, the little crumbs of life are good — laughing with my husband, playing with Chloe the kitten, watching Poirot, interacting with students (as strange as it is with small classrooms and Zoom meetings).

Tonight I will go to dinner at William Coy’s with my husband and contemplate how I can make next year a better one.

A lull — and jitters

I’m waiting for my favorite beta reader to react to my book. What she says will determine my final actions — do I put the book out this November or do I hold it back to show to a dev editor?

I’m pretty confident about the book not needing a dev editor, because I read through a number of times for flow, for sense, for proofreading.

No, I’m not confident, but I can’t afford a dev editor right now. I’m excited about putting it out. I haven’t had momentum like this in ages. In a perfect world, I’d have a quick and inexpensive dev editor. Maybe if I go through it one more time …

How do people go through all this publishing a book?