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Hi, Sally! Wonderful to hear from you. Yes, Le Guin—a real genius who took what had been a geek boy‘s club (Science Fiction) with more than a little tinge of Libertarian “every man for himself” ideology and showed how the genre could become a force for mutual respect, social responsibility, cooperation, and spiritual openness. She was also a good poet (Finding My Elegy: News and Seleted Poems and fine translator (Tao Te Ching, poems of Gabriela Mistral, and more).
As for your project, I would advise that you don‘t get hung up on it. Move on to something else entirely, in whatever genre. I think of Rainer Maria Rilke, who was suddenly inspired to begin The Duino Elegies in 1912 but got stuck, moved on to other poems, translations, essays on art … all sorts of things. He tinkered with the Elegies for 10 years until one day he was gobsmacked again and not only completed the Elegies but, in the same two or three months, wrote the 55-poem cycle Sonnets to Orpheus. The two works together are considered his supreme accomplishment as a poet, though there are individual masterpieces scattered throughout his work.
I know you‘re not particularly interested in poetry, but the same has happened to writers in all genres at one time or another. The trick is to keep writing—other stories, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, essays on ranch life, journaling … anything to maintain your readiness for when the book is ready to be completed. It will happen, but you need to keep your mind and heart attached to the writing process….
Here endeth today‘s sermon!
Hi, Nikita—
It’s so good to hear from you. Traffic here has been low, no surprise, as we all (I‘m sure) struggle with the effects of all this. It‘s being called a 9/11-type event, and it does feel like that, though the attack is ideology-free (I‘m not counting the racist tendencies surfacing in attacks on Asian Americans, of course).
I‘ve been reading poems online reacting to all this but can‘t write one myself. I‘ve always been a “seep-in” writer, with one exception—the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An early version of my poem is here. This pandemic is just too overwhelming, I guess. I wish I could write something as uplifting and beautiful as the Irish poet Derek Mahon has in his poem “Everything Is Going to be All Right.” But we all do what we can do, yes?
So it‘s good to know you‘re finalizing “Such a Peach.” I‘m sure the crew here would love to read the finished piece, but you may just want to send us a link when it‘s published.
Take care of you and yours, amiga. This too shall pass….
A good cure for perfectionism here: a Paris Review interview with the amazing George Saunders, who struggled mightily to discover his natural voice. Enjoy!
I don’t know if anyone here is afflicted with perfectionism, but the excellent writer Elizabeth Tallent has been for many years–and she’s managed to write and complete a memoir about it. Check out this review of her book and count yourself lucky if this particular shoe doesn’t fit.
I have to be honest, Sally. Duotrope never did much for me. I use Submittable, which tracks submissions (at least the last time I looked into Duotrope, it did do that), and there always seems to be more likely markets than I could ever try!
Gad, Sally! Did you ever track down that draft? If you keep them all in the same folder, you can sort the files by date (at least you can on a Mac; I’m sure you can on a PC but I’m ot sure how), and the most recent will show up either at the top or the bottom, depending on if you have them sorted in ascending or descending order. Let us know how it goes!
Hi, Nikita! I’ve been sidelined with a medical issue–all resolved now–that put me behind at work, so I’m only now beginning to get back in the swing of things. The good news is that I’ve placed a new poetry collection with NYQ Books, who did my previous collection. My issues set me back in getting them a final manuscript to start the layout, but I’ll be doing that this weekend. I’m still dithering over the title, but I think it’s going to be Under Sleep’s New Moon. The book should be out late summer or early fall. Yay!
I do distinguish between drafts. I work in Word and insert, in the footer of the first page only, this text:
Started on [date] | Revised [date and time]
The second field is inserted by choosing, under the Insert menu, the Date and Time… function:
I set it to automatically update, which it does each time I save the file. I don’t create a named new draft unless the content changes markedly—i.e., if it goes beyond basic proofreading. The “started on” date is static; only the revised date and time change. Every time I save a new version I change the filename, so that, for example, a draft called “NewsCycle.01” becomes “NewsCycle.02…” etc. I keep all the drafts in the same folder, which makes it easy to sort by filename if they get out of order.
I’ve found this useful with poems in particular because I find it so easy to veer off down a rabbit hole and, when I realize it, want to go back to an earlier draft. Whatever I do with the earlier draft becomes the latest draft of the text.
Just for grins, here’s the little poem called “News Cycle,” which believe it or not has gone through 11 revisions:
Howls. Unraveled guts. Boots steeped in blood.
The unsteady frontline cellphone footage tor-
tures our eyes like smoke from the pyres
burning heroes to ash at the end of the Iliad.For what it’s worth!
I almost forgot to add that I typically go through 20-25 drafts of a poem of moderate length–under 30 lines, I mean….
Here are three related posts from Writer Beware regarding misleading sources of information about traditional vs. self publishing. Important to keep in mind!
https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-predatory-companies-are-trying-to.html
https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2019/06/how-predatory-companies-are-trying-to.html
https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2019/12/how-predatory-companies-are-trying-to.html
Congratulations, amigo! Just so you know … thanks to you I’m reading True at First Light and liking it very much. So many passages of poetry in prose!
Oh! Oh! Don’t miss Powell’s Books in downtown Portland. (https://www.powells.com/) A converted car dealership serving Portland bookies since 1971. Plan to spend the whole day. Seriously. It’s more or less the center of the book universe in the Northwest.
As for your Roman philosopher … clearly, time is too precious to waste on clocks!
Every browser has blind spots. Firefox, which I love, often chokes when there’s a Captcha code required.
It’s very much my pleasure, amiga, to contribute however I can.
The book business has been suffering since … oh, the days book stalls in St. Paul’s churchyard circa 1570. Context is everything!
But yes, indie stores are the places to be. My haunt in Denver is BookBar (https://www.bookbardenver.com/) Nicole Sullivan, the owner, is powerful supporter of writers. She started the store because the book groups she was in had trouble getting the books they wanted in a timely manner….
I haven’t messed around with Squarespace. It looks great!
