Friday Submission Club

It's Saturday night and I am home trying to do a poetry submission.

Poetry submissions annoy me when I overthink them. I look at my work and say, "Hmm, this isn't good, nor is this." I say, "not this poem, this poem sucks, maybe I'll work on this poem, hey--what's this? I'm hungry, do we have any sliced gouda?" 

I sabotage myself. I can't figure out who to submit to, even though I have a list in front of me of journals I want to submit to.

I put the "pro" in "procrastinate," and so much, I end up writing a blog post (which I am behind on), instead of submitting. 

And wait, I'm the one who wrote that viral piece, Submit Like a Man? I could learn a lot from myself. 

But I have been submitting more, and there's a reason...

Last fall, Susan Rich and I created an email group for the women who joined us at Poets on the Coast called "Friday Submission Club" where we are to do one submission a week and report on it (you can do more than one, but one is the goal). Each Friday, I send out an email to the group and we each check in with where we submitted along with rejections and acceptances.

It's an excellent way to have accountability, structure, and routine.

Also, if you submit once a week, you will have 52 submissions in a year! For me (as someone who loves to write, but hates to submit, that's huge.)

But this week, I kind of lost track of what day it was as I'm off from work and basically just hanging around my yard in a hammock or lounge chair in the sun and reading. Susan sent out this week's email and I don't know, maybe I feel off the hook for having to submit this week... but I know I need to submit.

And tonight I am tired from talking with friends all day (tired in a good way, introvert tired, not-my-friends-are-annoying tired) and really, just want to slip myself into the newly-changed sheets on my bed and read.

So I think I'll be proud of myself for finally writing a blog post (sorry to be so behind) and let me myself off the hook on the submitting tonight, but will promise to do it tomorrow when my head is more in the game. (I am a much better morning poet.)

So that's a thing you know-- find the times you work best and use them. 

My time is morning now. Or after a nap. (Have I mentioned how often I nap? Almost daily. I nap at work, I nap in my car, I nap on the ferry... I seriously try to get a 40 minute - 60 nap a day. It's really like having 2 days in one. I wake up and my brain works again, it's' like magic, except it's science -- Yes, napping is good for you.) 

So tomorrow I will wake up and submit. I promise. 

And maybe you want to as well. Or maybe we can nap and dream we did...


~ Kells 
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