Poetical thoughts

[rflong]

I'm trying to whip "After 39 days" into shape and trying to discern what is the common procedure for poetry submissions. I'm a fiction girl, always have been, always will be, but poems do tend to find their way out once in a while, and so far their publication rate is much higher than that of my fiction! Go figure.

I did a bit of work on "The Bonny Lass O' Fyvie" last night. I want to get it polished up and out soon. The lack of responses to the pieces I have out is still a niggle, but I figure the best thing I can do is to submit/write more and just keep it all churning away. I think I have found another good market for "The Wrecker's Daughter " if it should come back again.  Fingers crossed it doesn't of course.

So, the main thing that remains with "The Bonny Lass O'Fyvie" is to sort out the whole chemical/mental time travel problem - I think by doing as my husband suggested and tying it in with the traveler's illness. As his body deteriorates, parts of the brain that lay dormant before are activated etc. I'm not entirely sure yet, but I HAVE to work it out. Mainly for the sake of my own sanity. Then I have to make it convincing!

We have three quarters of a kitchen (perhaps a little more) but no cooker yet! Soon, soon... please god soon! Never thought I would get sick of take away. All I want to do at this stage is boil up a big pot of pasta and make tagliatelle d'agusto. That, with some parmesan and a big bottle of wine would go down a treat. That or the chili beef ramen. Yum!

Ah well, maybe tomorrow. I won't get my hopes up for tonight. Oh, the car is in the garage again. Nearly had a heart attack when they told us the engine coil problem wasn't an engine coil problem and could be something more serious and then didn't ring us back all day yesterday! Contact was made, by my husband because I'm a chicken, today and it turns out that the engine coil had in fact gone as we thought but in a new, unexpected and interesting way. Phew! They thought it might have been the head gasket. 

Do I sound like I know what I am talking about?  

Anyway, hopefully I will have my car back tonight or tomorrow morning. Then I have to decide whether to sell it or not! :D  No, really, I love my car but it seems to be spending more time with our mechanic than me at the moment and, frankly, I'm getting jealous.

20 minutes til lunch. I have purposely left HP at home so I will do some work in work. Some...
R

Comments

[rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com]

Hi Ruth,

Thought I'd answer your question on here. Most litmags will say in their guidelines how many poems they'll accept in one batch. The usual is a group of three to five poems per submission. Some mags will ask you to submit the poems individually, some mags will ask you to submit them as one document or in the body of email.

Most specfic mags however don't accept multiple subs and ask for only one poem per submission, except Strange Horizons which accepts three poems I think. I'm not sure, you'd have to check the guidelines.

As to markets. Duotrope has a pretty comprehensive overview of poetry markets. I'd go there first. It all depends on what kind of poetry you're writing and where you want it to appear. I do agree about poems being easier to place than fiction pieces. But there are also lots more zines operated by poets and poetry lovers.

Hope this helps, Ruth. Good luck with the subs and keep up the good work.

[rflong.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that.

My main problem is I think I only have one ready to go out at the moment. I have to admit I wrote two a while ago (and this is the embarassing part) on the back board of a notebook which I now cannot find! Of course in my head they were wonderful. But I can't find them so I don't know for sure.

How ditzy is that?

Perhaps it is just time to do some writing! Duotrope does appear to be, as we say round here, 'yer only man'.

R

[gabriel-writes.livejournal.com]

Glad it is not the head gasket. Were you getting a lot of funky smoke out the tail-pipe? Coil is usually not starting. Head gasket repair is kinda expensive, what's worse is if you have a cracked head...Then you're talking new engine. Ouch...

The hubby's had me out to look at all kinds of cars to possibly replace his. Trouble is, he doesn't know what HE wants.

Good luck with the poetry subs.

[rflong.livejournal.com]

My husband had the cylinder head gasket go last year and it was a fairly expensive job, but it was replaceable. No news on when I can have mine back yet, or how much, but it is a coil, or rather with the make we have they call it an injector - it monitors the rhythm of the engine (hey, I'm not good at this!) and it is a common problem with the make. It happens all the time. Basically the engine goes all puttery (the only word for it) and you lose accelerating power - not fun when you're driving from Galway to Dublin after a very late night with, what suspiciously feels like a hangover - yes, it went the morning after the wedding!

We've been talking about a new car. Not sure what will happen yet.

[sacredmime.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, I finished reading "The Bonnie Lass o'Fyvie" last night. It's a very good story, and I will try to get you a crit tonight, (I'm not quite sure what advice to give, but I will think on it).

[rflong.livejournal.com]

Cool. That would be great!

R

[sacredmime.livejournal.com]

Hi, fyi, I finally did post that crit at LH. Best of Luck with the story. :)

[rflong.livejournal.com]

Thanks a million. It was really helpful. Now I need to make the time to work on it!