More Submissions
I've gone completely egotistical, thinking that my poems belong EvErYwHeRe~!
Harharhar.
Submitted yesterday to Blood Orange Review (again.. yeah they rejected me last year but I'm over that), storySouth, Analecta... and that's it!
I don't know why I was just feeling really positive about my writing. I've got a good feeling about all of this.
So tonight's the big reading at Cosina del Caribe and I'm excited about that. My adoring fans will be there (lol, Bruno and his mom, possibly my parents too :-D), along with my fellow MFAer comrades.
Confession time? I'm thinking yes. Be warned, a rambling rant will follow.
After a huge flood of submissions this week, I'm starting to feel self doubt coming back. I feel like God is trying to let me down easy sometimes, giving me little signs to not put all my hopes and dreams into this illusive and lofty goal of being a poet. How selfish is it to be a poet? Very.
Examples of these 'signs':
I was watching How I Met Your Mother yesterday (heh heh heh, yes I'm a loser at times). I like watching mindless television after work on Fridays, with a nice full glass of chardoney. Anyway, the episode was about Ted (protagonist) trying trying trying to be an architect with little success. And his friends tell him that he shouldn't be doing something that's so hard, that he should go where 'the universe' is leading him, instead of trying to pave his own path in life. So Ted ends up becoming a college professor (oh, yeah, that's soooo easy to do...) instead, and lives happily ever after because his future wife ends up being one of his students. Que romanitco!!! If he didn't 'take the hint' and kept trying trying trying to be an architect, he would have died all alone an old man never being married.
But... I've already got my soulmate by my side :-) And I'm finding bits and pieces of success along the way. I'm not Ted... am I?
Ok Ok Ok, another example maybe. I'm trying to rationalize my selfish endevors.
Bruno and I were enjoying yet another glass of wine out on the patio. He was firing up the grill, I was watching our lovely cats frolic in the garden. Bruno, out of pretty much the blue, tells me that he thinks I should have been a vetrinarian. HUH? Ok maybe it WASN'T out of the blue, I was explaining to him how Mr. Murano (my favorite cat) processes phenobarbitol through his liver~ how it's ever so slowly overworking it, and how we should switch to another anti-convusant once we see the earliest signs of liver decline (loss of appetite, yellowish poo... jaundice, but once you see the jaundice it's usually too late). Kepra, another anticonvulsant, is processed through the kidneys. Now Murano has a history of kidney stones so maybe it's not a good idea... blah blah blah I was going on and on about feline anatomy, chemical reactions in the stomach and brain, ect. He was looking at me like I was crazy, and he asked me, "how the heck do you know all of this?"
I thought about it for a moment. I just ask a lot of questions to vets, do a lot of research, I read feline health articles, a lot of web surfing... because I've had a lot of sick cats in the past and I always want to do what's best for them. I did really love taking Bio classes as an undergrad...
So Bruno ended up telling me, Katie - you need a plan B. What if plan A doesn't work out? What if you don't get into a PhD program, what if you don't get a job as a professor? Would you be okay with that? What if you don't meet your goals?
I didn't know how to answer him. What if I don't meet my goals?! What if I don't meet my goals!?
Bruno told me to have other goals, too. Be flexible in life, but never settle for anything less than your absolute best.
And he's right. I'm goal oriented to the point of it actually being dangerous. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I didn't meet my goals. And why is being a poetry professor my goal? I don't know how I've gotten here. Who is this woman, and what makes her go go go?
While I was lying in bed this morning, unable to go back to sleep and unable to get up, something in my mind told me that it was absolutely impossible to wake up in ten minutes. I must awake and fall back to sleep in incriments of 20 minutes, not ten minutes. Impossible, I thought to myself, impossible. At that very moment, the sprinkler system kicked in outside my window with a loud thud of water pressure. I shot up, looked at my clock. It was 6:50, incriment of 10 minutes, not twenty.
Nothing's impossible. I'm taking that as a sign from God, or in the wise words of Ted from How I Met Your Mother (and my mother too), from 'the universe'.
Nothing's impossible, Katie. Nothing.
Harharhar.
Submitted yesterday to Blood Orange Review (again.. yeah they rejected me last year but I'm over that), storySouth, Analecta... and that's it!
I don't know why I was just feeling really positive about my writing. I've got a good feeling about all of this.
So tonight's the big reading at Cosina del Caribe and I'm excited about that. My adoring fans will be there (lol, Bruno and his mom, possibly my parents too :-D), along with my fellow MFAer comrades.
Confession time? I'm thinking yes. Be warned, a rambling rant will follow.
After a huge flood of submissions this week, I'm starting to feel self doubt coming back. I feel like God is trying to let me down easy sometimes, giving me little signs to not put all my hopes and dreams into this illusive and lofty goal of being a poet. How selfish is it to be a poet? Very.
Examples of these 'signs':
I was watching How I Met Your Mother yesterday (heh heh heh, yes I'm a loser at times). I like watching mindless television after work on Fridays, with a nice full glass of chardoney. Anyway, the episode was about Ted (protagonist) trying trying trying to be an architect with little success. And his friends tell him that he shouldn't be doing something that's so hard, that he should go where 'the universe' is leading him, instead of trying to pave his own path in life. So Ted ends up becoming a college professor (oh, yeah, that's soooo easy to do...) instead, and lives happily ever after because his future wife ends up being one of his students. Que romanitco!!! If he didn't 'take the hint' and kept trying trying trying to be an architect, he would have died all alone an old man never being married.
But... I've already got my soulmate by my side :-) And I'm finding bits and pieces of success along the way. I'm not Ted... am I?
Ok Ok Ok, another example maybe. I'm trying to rationalize my selfish endevors.
Bruno and I were enjoying yet another glass of wine out on the patio. He was firing up the grill, I was watching our lovely cats frolic in the garden. Bruno, out of pretty much the blue, tells me that he thinks I should have been a vetrinarian. HUH? Ok maybe it WASN'T out of the blue, I was explaining to him how Mr. Murano (my favorite cat) processes phenobarbitol through his liver~ how it's ever so slowly overworking it, and how we should switch to another anti-convusant once we see the earliest signs of liver decline (loss of appetite, yellowish poo... jaundice, but once you see the jaundice it's usually too late). Kepra, another anticonvulsant, is processed through the kidneys. Now Murano has a history of kidney stones so maybe it's not a good idea... blah blah blah I was going on and on about feline anatomy, chemical reactions in the stomach and brain, ect. He was looking at me like I was crazy, and he asked me, "how the heck do you know all of this?"
I thought about it for a moment. I just ask a lot of questions to vets, do a lot of research, I read feline health articles, a lot of web surfing... because I've had a lot of sick cats in the past and I always want to do what's best for them. I did really love taking Bio classes as an undergrad...
So Bruno ended up telling me, Katie - you need a plan B. What if plan A doesn't work out? What if you don't get into a PhD program, what if you don't get a job as a professor? Would you be okay with that? What if you don't meet your goals?
I didn't know how to answer him. What if I don't meet my goals?! What if I don't meet my goals!?
Bruno told me to have other goals, too. Be flexible in life, but never settle for anything less than your absolute best.
And he's right. I'm goal oriented to the point of it actually being dangerous. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I didn't meet my goals. And why is being a poetry professor my goal? I don't know how I've gotten here. Who is this woman, and what makes her go go go?
While I was lying in bed this morning, unable to go back to sleep and unable to get up, something in my mind told me that it was absolutely impossible to wake up in ten minutes. I must awake and fall back to sleep in incriments of 20 minutes, not ten minutes. Impossible, I thought to myself, impossible. At that very moment, the sprinkler system kicked in outside my window with a loud thud of water pressure. I shot up, looked at my clock. It was 6:50, incriment of 10 minutes, not twenty.
Nothing's impossible. I'm taking that as a sign from God, or in the wise words of Ted from How I Met Your Mother (and my mother too), from 'the universe'.
Nothing's impossible, Katie. Nothing.
Comments
Post a Comment