Poem - Hotel California
Hey everybody!
Just wanted to check in and provide some content. I’ve been very productive lately when it comes to writing poems (finished a few in the last week) and a lot of it has come down to discipline. I have been forcing myself to sit down and write every day as if it was physical exercise and it has been very effective. Now submissions routine? Yeah, that could use a little work. I’m not even going to sugar coat it. 90% of my passion towards writing is based on the creative process and actually DOING the writing. The business side of it is less exciting. However, it is also an opportunity for me to hone my networking skills. I have to admit, I am very proud of the progress that I have made in the last couple of months. My social media accounts are growing slowly but surely. I’ve also had a lot of small but meaningful interactions with poets whose work I admire. These are small goals, but they were achieved through determination and consistency — two things I have historically struggled with. I have the tendency to be an all-or-nothing kind of guy that fears failure. I don’t fear it anymore. I like what I do and if I go for it for long enough, I know I have a really good shot of getting somewhere that once felt impossible.
On another matter, one thing I really want to clear up as well:
I haven’t posted a lot of my own personal poetry on the blog or my social media. I want to explain why (especially for my supporters that are not writers). My goal is to get my work out into the world via numerous different channels outside of this blog and social media accounts. Many literary journals do not accept work that has been published elsewhere first and that includes personal blogs and social media accounts. As such, I am trying to conserve most of my personal work until I find them good homes. But I don’t want to make them ineligible for publishing with my favorite literary journals. For reference, I have nearly 100 poems at the moment. Almost all of these have been blessed with the boon of time and revision. I want to get a couple dozen of them published in journals before I go about publishing my manuscripts. I have 2 solid manuscripts for full length poetry collections and am amassing enough quality poems to work towards a third.
With that said, I DO still want to provide a poem for you here and there, especially since many people I know haven’t seen a ton of my work. I want to feed you samples through my blog and social media. But if you want to see more of my work, don’t hesitate to reach out to me and ask. I would be thrilled, no, overjoyed! to send you more privately.
Below is a first draft of a poem I wrote this week.
I wanted to give you a small glimpse into a childhood memory of mine. One that confused me until I had the social, emotional, and verbal skills to verbalize.
Enjoy!
