Prompt-o-Rama

I signed up for a great writing prompt, to come weekly to my inbox. It's called This is Not a Literary Journal, and you can sign up too.

This week's prompt  (from James Brush) introduced me to Robert Peake's online prompt generator. I suggest you read James Brush's brief article before you rush off to play with the generator (he'll reveal the parameters he prefers to set on the generator), and Brush will recommend in his piece that that you read Peake's article In Praise of Randomness.

And you should do all that, if you haven't already hurried off to play with the new toy. Also I recommend you sign up for the weekly prompt. But probably no one is reading this, as you've all probably long since clicked on a link and disappeared. Which is as it should be. And now I'll disappear too.

Cleaning Up

In January I gave myself the project to look over all 20 of the poems in my manuscript that hadn't yet found homes in journals, and to decide if they needed revision, needed to be cut from the manuscript entirely, or just needed a different location in the manuscript. I gave myself 20 days, planning to do one per day, which is pretty much how it worked out, though one weekend day I did two, which was great because later there was a day I couldn't get anything done poetry-wise.

I expected this project to be quite painful, but in fact it wasn't so bad. There were a few poems that got major revisions, and two got new titles, but in general I just tightened up sloppy lines, lazy jumps in logic, uninspired line breaks, cases of over-explaining, and poor word choices. And even when the changes amounted to only a few words, I felt in all cases like the poems came more into focus and were sharper and stronger.

I ended up not cutting any poems. And in the case of a poem that I had meant to be a companion poem but had not ever gotten around to writing the companion piece, instead of cutting that poem I wrote the companion piece. And felt very good about it too. And I moved a few poems to new locations in the manuscript.

Then I decided to send out many of these new versions of my poems to journals. Some I decided didn't work out of context of the manuscript, which is telling a story after all, but the others I packaged up and sent out, and within a few days, four of those poems were accepted at three different literary magazines. These are poems I had been sending out without success for some months, but they also weren't those poems--they were the revised versions.

Such small revisions in many cases too. But it's all a testament to how much every word counts, how fine-tuning a poem can make it so much better. And in all cases I knew what the problem was with the poem as soon as I read it last month--had always known it wasn't really finished but hadn't wanted to know that in the past. I could feel my shoulders tense when I approached the lines that I knew had problems--it wasn't news to me; I just had wanted to be done with these poems too early, and now I was ready to admit my haste.

How great it is to put poems aside and to revise them later, after the emotional attachment has waned. Then you can be honest with yourself about the poem's weaknesses, and it doesn't hurt the way it does when that particular thing is the last thing you've written and your ego is tied up in its success.

It was a very useful project, so I wanted to share my experience.

The Opposite of Golden

A year ago everything I sent out as a submission was golden, snapped up immediately. Journals I withdrew simultaneous submissions from responded with expressions of dismay that they had not gotten back to me in time. Dream journals contacted me and asked to see poems. And I said to myself, "Remember this time, keep it in your heart for the dry spells which are surely coming."

And now is that dry spell. One of them. One of many. Of the many that typify my publishing experience. Nobody wants my work now. Much like before.

And I'm okay with that. I will keep writing. Because I do it for the work. Not for the publication.

(But I admit it--that one golden publishing time last year--that was fun.)

Candlelit

I visited a candle holder five or six times before I bought it last year and put it into my Christmas stocking. It wasn't expensive--about $6, but I don't like to buy things and not use them--getting rid of stuff worries me: landfills, etc., and keeping unused clutter around in our small Japanese home makes me crazy. But after visiting the candle holder in the store so many times, I decided I had a real jones for it, and got it.

Now I put a candle in my little holder and light it before I write. Different candles--some scented, some not. I even got an LED candle for it (and decided I preferred the smell and warmth of a real candle). I don't know why, but having it in front of me focuses me as I write. I can write for a longer period of time and with greater concentration and purpose when I look and see my candle burning there in front of me.

Can't explain it, but there it is.

New year, new habit, better writing.

Barrow Street

"Word Problem," a poem from my manuscript about my uncle, is in the Winter 2015/2016 issue of Barrow Street, along with work by Travis Wayne Denton, John Estes, B. K. Fischer, Beth Gylys, David Dodd Lee, Stephen Massimilla, J G McClure, Katheryn Nuernberger, Leah Umansky, G C Waldrep, David Yezzi, and many other worthy poets. Check it out.