Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

Three quick things:

Description: Lined notebook with a freshly sharpened pencil on a blank, open page.

1. Three poetry rejections this week (two from journals, one from a contest). But also: one acceptance! I hope to be able to share that poem soon.

2. The contest rejection, and a couple of other motivations, inspired me to check in with a poet whom I studied with back when I was beginning this whole poetry endeavor more intensively. I’d decided that, after last year’s manuscript workshop, and the responses from the handful of presses/contests I’ve sent it to, the project and I might benefit from an expert consultation.

So I spent a big chunk of time over the weekend tweaking/modifying the ms and then emailed  it off to those expert eyes. I’m nervous, of course, about the response that I’ll get. But as I told my consultant, I just want to make this ms as good as it can be. So I have to be open to all kinds of feedback.

3. Current guilty pleasure: Urged by my sister, I am currently ingesting episodes of the TV Land series Younger (inspired by a novel by Pamela Redmond Satran). I’m currently about midway through the first season.

In the first episode, the main character is hired as an assistant in a publishing house.

Need I say more? 😉

What’s new with your writing practice?

10 thoughts on “Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

  1. Hi, Erika,
    I enjoy your Midweek Notes!
    What’s new with my writing practice? I seem to be moving farther away from it as I pursue my PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies. Yet, as I begin research for my dissertation, I’m finding nuggets of information that may be useful to creative writing. I am tucking those away for the moment. I ache to write poetry, but I have no time for that now. Still, I have a chapbook, Pounding Cobblestone, coming out this fall from Kelsay Books. It’s based on my month in the Prague Summer Program a few years ago.
    I’d like to think I still have time before the fall semester starts (teaching six classes and taking two, yikes!) to revise an MG bio. I’ve contracted to write five books for hire this fall. Crazy, but I need the money to pay for tuition.

    1. Erika Dreifus says:

      Wow! You sure sound busy, Barb. And whatever you’re writing for the PhD “counts,” too!

  2. P. Jo Anne Burgh says:

    Congratulations on the acceptance, Erica!

    What’s new with my writing practice? My (as yet unpublished) first novel placed as a finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition! I also submitted a novella, and I’m on tenterhooks waiting for the F-W folks to post shortlist/finalists/semi-finalists for that category–they’ve been posting the results (except identifying winners and runners-up) in the various categories since the beginning of the month. I don’t even want to think about how many times a day I refresh that page, just to check.

    So now I’m learning how to write a query and researching agents, as well as studying what comes after that so I can be minimally prepared. While all this is going on, I’m trying to focus enough to work on a new fiction piece–no idea at this point if it will have enough ballast to be a novel.

    As for your guilty pleasure, count me in! I adore Younger. When I signed up on Hulu, one of my first happy discoveries was that it carried the first four seasons. Enjoy!

    1. Erika Dreifus says:

      Congrats on the Faulkner-Wisdom recognition, and good luck with the F-W competition—and everything else. (And I’m looking forward to getting back to Younger soon! I spent too much time otherwise engaged tonight!)

  3. Gargi Mehra says:

    Congrats on the acceptance, Erika! I have had none since July and have also cut down on my submitting spree a bit to focus on my long fiction.
    Like you, I too have been considering getting some professional feedback. Let’s see if I get around to it eventually..
    Also – another Younger lover here! Haven’t caught up with the latest season but I plan to as soon as I can!

    1. Erika Dreifus says:

      And I’ve *just* read your essay for The Writer, Gargi. It’s wonderful! (For those who may have missed it: https://www.writermag.com/2018/08/07/feet-in-two-boats/.)

      1. Gargi Mehra says:

        Thank you SO much, Erika! I am thrilled that you like it!

  4. Congrats, Erika. Thanks again for your inspiration and market tips. My short story, “Her Last Dance” was just published in Gemini Magazine story contest issue. http://www.gemini-magazine.com/kriegerherlastdance.html

    1. Erika Dreifus says:

      Oh, my gosh–Evelyn, what an ending.

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