On Not Submitting

It’s an uncomfortable fact with me to be sure, but I haven’t submitted more than a handful of poems in the past several years. There are a couple of reasons for that, but there you are. Oh, I’ve been writing all along; I just haven’t been sending them out. They’ve been piling up in various files for revision, like models on a workshop bench.

It turns out I’m not alone. I have writer friends who are in the same position, it turns out. These people have already been published; but as with me, they’re on pause. Personally, at some point I’d like this to end, but it’ll have to wait until I’m able to retrieve my PC from Toronto (that’s another story).

I’ve been thinking about how my writing life could’ve gotten to this, but these are some of the reasons for it:

At some point, acceptances lost their appeal. I’ve no idea how or why that could’ve happened, but here we are. The happiness just wasn’t there anymore. I used to take real pleasure anytime good news arrived in the mail, but at a certain point, not so much. The process wasn’t fun anymore, either. It felt more like work that no longer satisfied. Just the writing became enough. I’d had the experience of publishing; more and more I wanted to focus on production.

In some ways, I think the blog became a substitute. Instant gratification, I guess. Obviously, I don’t print my own poems here, but these entries give me a different kind of pleasure; in some ways, they scratch the itch.

None of these are justifiable, of course, even if true. They do, however, help explain the sequence of events that brought me here. Here’s the funny thing, though—submitting poems is easier than ever now, with online magazines, submission programs of various kinds, etc. That means none of us have reason to not try. Once I get my life reorganized out here in L.A., it’s time to get underway again. At least, I hope to.