I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Woohoo! Rag-a-Bag!

(because the overwhelming vote is, just do it)

Just got an email (well, this morning) from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Rag-a-Bag passed first and second muster and is now on the shortlist (they say later, only 1 of 3 shortlisted poems get accepted). Woohoo! I'll take one out of three over one out of a hundred any day of the week.

They ask for my patience ("Yeah, yeah, patience,how long is that going to take" - Ed Gruberman) as they consider it. Consider my patience granted. Any editor, any market, you want to take a while to read my work for possible publication, take your time. When I started this journey a response time of 6-8 months was common, and that was for a form rejection letter. So if you need three months to decide and I'm out of the slush already, you go right ahead and take that time.

Oh, and thanks for the email Zara at Andromeda Spaceways. That was very cool. I'm now on a natural high (and it was starting off being a bad day and Thursdays are my long day at work). Thanks, Zara.

Woohoo!

3 comments:

Camille Alexa said...

Perhaps poetry is your metier after all! Good for you, Steve.

ThatGreenyFlower said...

Yay! Short-listed! (I'm short-bussed and it's just not the same...)

Steve Buchheit said...

Camille, thanks. While I write to please myself (hmm, that doesn't sound kosher that way) I edit to try and earn some money. So, I'm willing to send out the poetry (as I'm starting to write more of it, or think about it more as an option) as a way to build a name and get publishing credits (which strangely enough Chuck-E-Cheese will accept for prizes), there's more money in shorts, and even more in novels. And the shorts were exercise for novel writing. Which, I need to start putting the words down again for the novel.

Greeny, thanks. Short listed is definately better than being short sheeted or fused.

And now, I can tell, because I'm not making any sense at all, I has a 12 hour day, and on top of that just spent an hour and a half in freelance design on an emergency project and I am blown. Totally and completely. I dont' even know how to finish this thought. So I'm rambling and I should stop now. Thanks everybody for your advice. Thanks, Zara for the total pick-me-up email of the day/week/month.

Goodnight everybody, don't forget to tip the veal and try the waitstaff.