Never accuse me of going in a straight line. I swear I think it is impossible for me to have one thread going in my life on any front.
For example, I’m querying a novel. I’m finishing the last, last, last, oh please let them be the last edits, I’ve written a spiffy new database, I’m researching agents, I’m posting about the process faithfully, and I’m writing blog posts in addition to all that. It’s ENOUGH! Right?
No, apparently not. <head desk>
It would appear I have to start querying my poetry, as well?
I should confess something here. I have never thought of myself as a poet. But if you put me down near a pen and paper there is likely going to be something written, no matter what else I am supposed to be doing. You should see my physics notes from college. Half equations, half quatrains. Really.
Some of my poetry is utter rubbish. Most of it qualifies as doggerel and not much more. But on occasion I come up with something that seems worth pursuing. And I’ll spend time polishing it, making it much more spiffy, and then I put it in a drawer and forget about it for a few years.
Then I stumbled across the Friday Poetry Battle over on Twitter. Fun! I got to play with words. And to play with others who liked playing with words. Even better. That evolved into the Move Me Poetry community. If you love reading or writing verse head on over there. Tell JD that Mari sent you. Doing that won’t earn you a better place by the fire, but I like to say hi to JD. I could wax poetic* about all the good things they do, but it’s easier and much more fun if you go look for yourself. (Twitter/@MoveMePoetry)
Anyway, as I have been researching agents who might have an interest in my novel I stumbled across one who spoke of an interest in poetry, and a specific interest in underrepresented voices.
And one of the voices in my head just glommed onto that and ran. I could not get the idea out of the spin cycle. That voice in the back of the noggin saying “Do it.” over and over.
I was deeply torn. Finally I resolved that I wasn’t ready to do this. My poetry wasn’t ready, I mean. (ahem)
But this afternoon, what do I find myself doing? You guessed it. I submitted some of my poetry with perhaps the most glaringly incoherent cover letter ever written. I suspect the agent will look at the letter and hit ‘delete’. Because man, it was gibberish.
I knew I wasn’t ready to do it. I knew it, but still that damn unsilenceable urge won out. I have no idea where my rational accountant was while ‘See Me’ was running the show. But you would think that one of the more rational voices woulda tackled her before we all got to look like loons.
So, I’m kicking myself.
The only silver lining I can see is that since there was an interest in underrepresented writers, at least we came off looking totally like a totally imcoprehensible mess.