Last week, my submissions were to short story and poetry competitions. I usually avoid these. Mostly because they cost money to enter. Money that few people, and especially I, as an unpaid writer and grad student, don't have much of. Plus I have yet to win or even place in any of these things. I have to admit though, aside from wanting my damn money back with each contest rejection, they do send out the nicest rejection letters. They tend to seem much more sympathetic and sorrowful than most rejections, as though they'd like to accept you, but they can't count beyond three, or ten, or however many honorable mentions they're going to give and as though they'd like to give me award money, but they too are too financially strapped to afford it. So, here, instead accept this book/magazine/journal for free...It doesn't include my story, but it does have the ones the judges felt were only slightly more enjoyable than your work.
As for this week, I spent all of yesterday editing the novel in poems that I wrote several years ago, trying to parse down the word count so I could send it off to a certain competition. I really like narrative poems. There's nothing like being able to edit an entire novel in one day even though you should be doing other work.
In other news, you may notice some changes are afoot on the blog. Although I am naturally opposed to rating systems for books, I've decided to implement one of my own. It'll be in exclamation points, because that's a language I understand.
A summary is to the left, but to make things simple !!!!! = LOVE, ! = HATE. It may take some time for the new system to actually make an appearance in the reviews.
You'll also notice some more changes to come in the future of this blog. But you'll have to wait for the big announcement...which will be made on an unknown day at some yet to be determined time. Get comfy. It may be a long ride.
And don't forget! Tomorrow is International Literacy Day!
No comments:
Post a Comment