Just got another one. That's three rejections of my recent stories with invitations to send more work. Feels almost as good as an acceptance. Feels like I'm just under an ice surface, poking at it with an ice pick. I know where the image comes from. Wife and I recently watched first season of Fargo, the TV series. If you've seen it, you know where the ice image comes from and the thought of being trapped under the ice.
Lately, my work has stopped entirely. I live with a sort of dizzy, old age lethargy. Hard to generate a creative thought out of it. I may talk to the doctor about the dizziness, but, long ago, a doctor told me it's common with old age and likely to get worse. Over the years it has gotten worse. Too many days of it now. But, today, dizziness or not, I'm going to work on a story I began a month ago. See if I can feel my way to a creative ending, an entertaining middle, an enticing start. Of course, I can always work on the short story ms for submission to the most prestigious contests. Maybe all the stories together will generate a more positive energy. Enough to make a breakthrough.
I just ate a pulled pork barbecue sandwich at the Van Mall. Delicious. Could have used a bit more of the delicious sauce. Will ask for it next time. A local company, the Backyard Barbecue.
Now to business. Has been suggested by several websites that these entries ought to occur every other day or so. To keep readers titillated. But I figure, why write if news is sparse? Just finished rework of poetry ms about cancer treatments YOU WAKE ONE MORNING, REMEMBERING and submitted it to BKMK Press contest at University of Missouri. Cost thirty dollars to enter. Administrative costs, they say. Well, a bit too much I figure. But, the contest is prestigious and those who enter do so anonymously. Fair and square.
Next task is to put together another short fiction ms and enter it in contests too. The one I have already put together contains too many stories that modern editors will reject. Their style probably sounds out of date to a youthful editor. I imagine they don't get the charge out of those that I do. I hope another surge of short stories arises in my psyche.
Last task on list is to put together a poetry ms from my lifetime of work, the published and the unpublished — the very best I have written and circulate the ms in contests.
PS: The prostate cancer news is so so. Need more talk with urologist, I think.
