new year’s resolutions 2023

In last year’s new year’s resolution post here at LoveSettlement I mostly talked about writing. That’s what I tend to think about when I think about resolutions because most of the other things in my life aren’t things to make resolutions about. I don’t make resolutions about better diet or more exercise because I eat good food as best I can and I do as much exercise as my body will allow. If I were to make a resolution it might be to get to the gym again. I am still nervous about being around people expelling a lot of breath, droplets in air being the main transmission factor for covid. The rigamarole of going to a special building downtown and changing my clothes in order to make myself tired and sore is also relatively hard to motivate myself into. I like walks around the neighborhood, even straight up the hill, and I’ve added pull-ups to that routine by stopping by a park playground and finding a bar to hang from. I have a regular yoga practice. So not going to the gym doesn’t mean I’m not exercising.

I don’t set writing goals either. I write, or I don’t. I work on projects or whatever comes. What I need resolve to get done is the marketing. I need to push myself to send work out. In 2022 I was surprised to learn that a poet friend with two books and various accolades has not been sending her poems out to magazines. So I proposed we form a mutual support group for submissions goals. We’ve been doing this for six months or so, each month setting a goal for number of places to send to. Then we check in to see how it went. We don’t set high goals, but for my friend going from none to four was a big step. I tend to set my goals low then exceed them, but when I was answering only to myself I was setting my goals high and straining to reach them, which was discouraging.  Having a friend congratulate me on meeting my sub goal has been a real boost. 

So long as your work is going around you place stuff. Mostly the response from editors is rejection, of course. Having rejection be the primary aspect of the process is a resolve weakener, so adding a friend’s encouraging voice — and in turn encouraging her — de-poisons the atmosphere. If my friend is amenable, I would continue this through 2023. 

Another poet friend talked me into setting up a Twitter account: @lovesettlement … I did that at the beginning of October, then I read articles on how best to use Twitter. And I did all that just before Elon Musk bought it and started destroying it. I tweet links to old blog posts — and the stats for the blog posts always show 8 - 10 fresh visitors. Whether that means anyone new has stopped by to read is ambiguous. A number isn’t a reader. It may be some sort of software feeler, a bot. I don’t know. Should I bother anymore? Should I hook up with Mastodon? Some other Twitter-like site? Unresolved!

I am working with publisher AC Books to bring forth Autobiography of a Book. This year? Hope so! Supporting Book will be a task — seeking reviews, scheduling readings, figuring out what else one can do. Getting into that stuff will require resolve, but is it really any different from pushing oneself to do other things that need to be done but which one doesn’t readily want to do, like paying bills or renewing the passport? So would this count as a New Year’s Resolution? 

Then there’s assembling manuscripts. I have a lot of work in notebooks and in computer files that can be organized. I have a chapbook manuscript out to a publisher. I sent my book-length poetry manuscript out to another publisher late last year. So: assembling manuscripts, researching publishers, sending those out. Resolved! Ugh. I mean, Whee!

I am glad the world continues to open up. I am adding live, in-person poetry events to my calendar. I’ll get myself to open mics again. Being around people at poetry readings is something like socializing and socializing is necessary, if hard for me. The main way I’ve gotten Thousand out into the world is by trading it for other people’s books or zines. So I remind myself to bring copies along to literary and small press occasions. 

There is always something to do. I remember my mom saying something like that. True enough. People to see, things to do.

new year’s resolutions

The pandemic continues, so the opportunities for in-person engagement continue to be limited. I can send out copies of “Thousand” to people I like/admire, a project that doesn’t require spending time in company. It would be nice to do more of that, but I do what I can. (Yes, this is a standard script.) I did one Zoom reading in 2021. I suppose I could look for more zoom opportunities this year.

My two book-length manuscripts are out to publishers. My poetry manuscript (currently titled “Nobody You Know”) is out to one, and has been rejected five times since 2017. “Autobiography of a Book” is out to nine, has been rejected 12 times, also since 2017, though most were just in the past year, which means I’m keeping things moving. There are publishers who will consider prose without a reading fee. It’s a struggle finding any poetry publishers who will. After an ezine editor told me he sent his first novel to 100 publishers, I set a goal of 100 for my manuscripts. I’m 20% of the way there with “Book”. 

My thoughts on reading and contest entry fees would be a screed for another day. 

There was talk at the library of restarting programs. But that was before omicron, the latest covid variant. We’re back to wait-and-see. I miss both my poetry programs, the Poetry Circle and Clearly Meant. In 2021 I finally got permission to post the Clearly Meant videos on the Berkeley Public Library YouTube channel. I have one or two more to edit and post. 

I will continue to put together new batches of poems to send out, and continue to circulate those that haven’t yet placed. In order to reduce the power of rejection I hadn’t been keeping track of rejectors. It’s come to the point it’s more helpful to know where pieces have been than to shield from my tender view the gruesome pile up. 

#keepyournumbersup … Rather than the goal being to get into any particular venue or achieve a certain number of acceptances, I make the goal pure numbers. I let the number be vague, but more is better. This is really the only aspect of the process the supplicant has control over. No control over length of time editors take, no control over their responses (if any). So worrying about such things is not fruitful. Worry takes energy, and if I have energy, it’s better to use it sending work out. 

One thing happened in 2021 that I didn’t foresee. “Thousand” got taught. Two writing teachers included “Thousand” in lesson plans. Both told me that their students were intrigued by the method of composition (100 words a day for a thousand days). I don’t know how one might follow up on that. But things happen that surprise you.

What more to look forward to in a new year — nurturing/enjoying relationships, travel, reading, writing, healing.

It’s been a sunny 2022 so far. Nice, as we always say in California, but we need the rain.

new year’s resolutions

I wrote the following in response to another blogger’s call for writerly resolutions:

In 2019 I got a first book published (prose or prose poetry). It was pub'd by a tiny press without resources for any kind of marketing. But it’s a handsome book and the publisher is a sweetheart. Figuring out how to get it out into the world has been, well, a hobby ever since. 

I like performing so I was going to open mics in our very active SF Bay Area literary scene -- I sold a few copies, I traded for other people’s books (I like trades!) -- but then the pandemic came along. The boxes have been gathering dust. So I've started doing something I always wanted to do -- I'm sending free copies to people I like and admire. I've only sent a few out this way so far. I include a handwritten letter. I am shy about sending to people I don't know personally. But I'm poised to do so. So I will be doing that in 2021.

There were years there when rejection was so hurtful I did few submissions. In 2017 I put together a poetry manuscript, motivated by a contest. Though the nucleus of the manuscript is published poems, many of my favorites were unpublished. So, while waiting to hear back from the contest judges, I started sending out the unpublished poems. The manuscript didn’t win the contest, but most of the poems have been published now in ezines. I will send the manuscript to other presses/contests in 2021. 

I have another prose manuscript, and I've been able to place excerpts in a few literary venues. I have gathered almost 150 rejections for excerpts. The full manuscript has been rejected only three times. I will put more energy into getting the manuscript out in 2021. 

Then there are all the poems that fill up notebooks. Since 2017 I have been regularly sending out work and rejection no longer feels so crushing. Acceptances happen now and then. Dreams of literary fame continue to haunt my chinks and crannies, of course, because I'm a dreamer. I sent out two poetry submissions before writing this comment. I got one rejection this morning. In my three-person writing group we use: #keepyournumbersup ... So when I'm feeling discouraged I remind myself to put out some of those good poems to places that haven't yet had the opportunity to read them. Every editor is a reader. If I've sent a poem to 20 places, it's been read 20 times, right? I wonder how many readers a published poem gets?

the envelope of love

I just walked nine batches of poems over to the post office. Last time I did a serious mailing only a handful of literary magazines were reading email submissions and they were snarky about it. Today I found in my research most have ceased reading work received in physical form. The old self-addressed stamped envelope is looking endangered.

Yay!

Online submissions are easier and cheaper for writers. I look forward to sending more work out that way.

I created a physical mailing because that’s the way you were taken seriously. Up to now. And because I wanted to take the process seriously. It’s been ages since I really committed to sending work out. Assembling the whole package — addressing the envelopes, the SASE, the stamps, the cover letter — it’s dispiriting. Especially, of course, when the hope and eagerness is bitten away at by the fat SASE of rejection. The times I have sent out work in the few last years I asked in my cover letter that the manuscript be recycled and NOT returned. The pages were often not something that could be sent out again anyway, what with editors’ pencilings or the puncture marks of staples or just the wear of handling. And if the submission came back pristine, that was its own kind of discouragement. Better the slim envelope of rejection than the fat.

Here’s hoping for the svelte envelope of love.

blue sky and gentle breezes

A comfortable day in Berkeley. I'm in flip-flops. Just finished a tuna sandwich here at Bel Forno, where I'm using the wifi, a few sips to go on my mocha.

I wrote in my diary. I have some books to read, will probably get thru a few pages.

Browsing accommodations on Oahu as Kent & I are thinking of visiting his nephew who has a boat there. Randall and his biz partner are running scuba and snorkel trips under the name Hawaiian Diving Adventures. I've never worn a scuba mask and I'd like to give it a go.

K & I prefer a walk in the woods to a walk in the mall and Waikiki, as a seething mass of bodies, does not appeal, so we've never thought much of Honolulu as a destination. But the more I read about the island the more it seems a lot of it is rural. Plus it's not big. From one end of the island to the other travel takes about an hour, according to Google maps.

I'd be fine with a day at museums.