chapbook draft

I have mentioned before that I am putting together a chapbook for the QuillsEdge Press contest for women poets over fifty.

At least I have the woman over fifty part nailed…

When the contest information was sent to me by one of the thoughtful male members of Grapevine Group, I already had a small group of poems written that related to this year’s theme, “In Transition.” Over the last couple of months, I have been writing and revising more poems to fill in gaps and to have enough poems to meet the page count requirement.

I have mentioned several times that I have been working assiduously on one poem in particular. After workshopping it with three different groups of poets, trying it out at a couple of readings, and revising again at the recommendation of a trusted poet-friend, I have now decided to use it as the final poem of the chapbook. Poets are advised to end with a strong poem and I am hoping that this at-least-for-now final version will fill the bill.

I had been playing with the order of the poems as I continued to add new ones and today, with all the poems finally available, I did another round of changes. When I finished the re-shuffle on the computer, I printed out a copy so that I can hold it in my hands and read it through as if it were a real publication.

I am trying to restrain myself from begging for readers to give me more advice. Though the deadline isn’t until January first, I really would like to submit next week. December is such a busy month that I would like to have it sent off and out of my head so I can move on to the rest of my to-do list. I also realize that all my poet-friends are similarly busy this time of year and don’t want to bug them more than I already have.

I am also trying to see this as a self-trust exercise. Given my lack of formal training, it’s easy for me to doubt my technical ability as a poet. People write books about how to order poems – and I haven’t read any of them, even though I do own one of them.

I will read it eventually…

For now, my plan is to read the chapbook aloud several times over several days, tweak anything that bothers me, and send it off through Submittable sometime next week.

And then wait a few months for news…

 

inscrutable stats

WordPress stats can be weird.

At the moment, for today I have 29 views, 20 visitors, 43 likes, and 3 comments.

It seems strange to have more likes than views.

I’m guessing that means that some of the likes are through the reader or through people who get instant email messages of new posts.

Maybe there are reasons I don’t pay that much attention to my stats page…

sharing blogging tips

Would you like to read some blogging tips and share some of your own?  Pop over to my blog-friend Jay Dee’s blog I Read Encyclopedias for Fun and join in the discussion:  https://ireadencyclopedias.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/my-take-on-this-whole-blogging-thing/

I admit that I don’t follow all the advice that is offered.  For example, I choose to have a wide-ranging blog rather than a focused one. I am also notoriously bad at handling images, and can’t imagine ever adding video. However, I also never set out to have a large readership, so I am comfortable going my own way on those things.

I do, however, try to be good about responding to comments and about visiting and commenting on other blogs. It’s what makes bloggers into a community.

Most likes!

While watching the first Democratic Party debate, I am also perusing some blog posts and got a notification that today, Tuesday, October 13, 2015 is my best day for likes ever here at Top of JC’s Mind. Yay!!!

And there are a couple of hours left, so who knows if I may wind up with more than the 49 that has set the new record for me?

Thanks to all my visitors! I appreciate you stopping by!