I hope that most of the time, these Thursday posts are upbeat, optimistic, and even inspirational. I’ve certainly received some wonderful feedback on last week’s post, for instance, both in the comments and offline, and that cheers me. But some weeks, it’s a little more difficult to find and focus on the positive. I guess this is one of those weeks.
Here’s a sampling of this week’s writing-related challenges and/or disappointments:
Although I’d sent myself multiple draft/test versions of the July Practicing Writer newsletter, when the actual newsletter went out to subscribers yesterday morning, ye-olde-spacing-gremlins returned with a proverbial vengeance. I always want the newsletter’s appearance to be as flawless as I can make it (to match the excellent content, of course!). So that was disappointing. (If you’d like to see a “clean” copy as it was intended to be published, please click here. As usual, you’ll find many paying calls for submission and no-fee competitions for fictionists, poets, and writers of creative nonfiction listed, in addition to all of our other newsletter goodies.)
I found out that I did not win a fellowship I applied for months ago. I didn’t really expect to win this particular fellowship, but wouldn’t it have been nice if I had?! Perhaps I should add that I also received a couple of rejections on more typical submissions this past week–but at this point, those barely make me blink.
As much as I love the Fridays-off part of my day job’s six-week summer schedule, I am finding it a little tougher than usual to adjust to the longer M-Th workdays. Simply put, the days really do feel longer. I’m tired, and I’ve been finding it more difficult to squeeze in writing, workouts, or anything fun on the margins of my workdays. (And yet, I know how lucky I am to even have a day job!)
Yesterday, the Jewish Book Council sent me an email saying that they’d received the initial round of requests for authors from most of its NETWORK members. Suffice to say that the requests for me and Quiet Americans were underwhelming. So that’s a big disappointment. (On the other hand, maybe I’ll be able to use all of those banked vacation days for a residency or for a New York-based “staycation” that allows me to do some research for my fledgling fiction project.)
And last, but not least, today (June 30) closes out the second quarter of the year, which means that I’ll soon be able to begin calculating my quarterly contribution to The Blue Card. As you may recall, sales of Quiet Americans dictate the size of the contribution, and thanks to the author-friendly structure of my book’s micropress publisher, I already know that I’ll be able to give The Blue Card less than half of what I sent last quarter.
Of course, as a certain literary heroine was wont to pronounce, tomorrow is another day. Things are likely to look up soon (and they’re really not that bad in the first place). Thanks for indulging me today!