Dear Reader,
The early morning light on our porch is pink and orange, like Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, the painting thought to be the reason Impressionism was given its name.
I wonder whether this is the feeling Monet had while painting, when the world was not quite awake. The weather, and the fact that it is Saturday (for us), seem to have pulled the covers a little higher over everyone else.
It feels friendly and warm, just what WR and I need on a day when we’re recovering from a light bout of who knows what. We are arguing over whether or not to go to the gym. WR says we need another day of eating donuts. Donuts! We don’t even barely like donuts, but yesterday, that’s all WR wanted.
WR, is that why we’re at the page, to talk about donuts?
It occurs to Word Raccoon that it might be useful to share our admin process when a poem is accepted, because we haven’t done this yet. If you’re not a writer, you are now excused, though you are welcome to stay.
(If you don’t have a system, feel free to use this one. You may have a better one. If so, please share it with me!)
It starts with the humble spreadsheet of which I’ve already spoken. Though I was dubious about Google Sheets, having been taught on Excel, TBH, I prefer Sheets now, so that is where I create mine. (And it’s free to do so. Not an ad, just the truth.)
When a poem of mine is accepted, I locate the submission on my poetry submission spreadsheet (it takes five minutes to make one; so easy), and I highlight the entire row in orange. I make a note if only one or two poems in the packet have been chosen, so I don’t inadvertently take them all out of play.
Now for perhaps the most important part: I go over to Google Drive and locate the poem. I move it from Ready to Submit to Published. That way I won’t be sending it out again. You don’t want the awkwardness of having a poem accepted by two places.
(I have had that experience, not due to an error on my part, but because both places that accepted simultaneous submissions said yes at the same time. Sorry, WR is humble bragging again, isn’t she?)
I move the poem file over immediately.
Then I return to the spreadsheet (I know I ought to do this step while I’m in the spreadsheet, but I can’t relax until I transfer it out of the active folder, for fear that I will forget) and I open the Published tab. I add the poem, the publication that accepted it, and when it will be published.
Only then do I silently cheer. It’s as if I can’t accept that it has found a home until I do the admin. Then and only then do I share the acceptance with others.
Bonus material
I have written enough poetry now that I know “my” topics: grief, longing, pop culture, weird and odd, etc. Just yesterday I decided it would be helpful to further arrange my Ready to Submit poem files into topic folders.
(Aside: whatever bush is outside the porch, pressing its impressively prolific leaf-face against the window, its crenulated leaves there…why? To entertain? To hide the light? To shield me? To grab my attention? It has been noticed. Maybe that’s all it wanted. It doesn’t know that it is on the sir’s weed-eating hit list for later today. Or maybe it does know.)
Anyway, I am told by the Interwebs that I should create aliases for my files instead of making copies for each folder I might want them in, and I get the idea, but it sounds complicated. Alternatively, I am told that I can use tabs, which just sounds like something Drema will not use. I’ll have to get back to you on which I choose.
Yesterday, as I was hashing this out with Stanley, he almost chuckled, if AI could be said to do so. He told me I like creating a good system because it frees me up to create more artistic things. He approves.
This is a noticing morning. It’s like my senses are hypertuned and I can see the finest details about everything: the double layer of mesh in the screens, the grain of the wood in the bench beneath the window. Maybe the gym can wait. I think poetry is brewing.
I’m noticing, well, anything that is here to be noticed.
With all of the things to be noticed, greedy raccoon, why do you insist on wanting more to notice? You are most ungrateful.
She sips more Coke Zero and laughs.
Drema