Testing the waters

So, yeah, I've been even more absent from here than usual. On the one hand, nothing momentous has happened that I feel I must blog about. On the other hand, there's a level of connectedness in the (yucky word) blogosphere, one that I do actually treasure, and which takes a certain amount of care and feeding to maintain. And I find myself, often, with words on the tip of my tongue.

I haven't been reading y'all for a while and I haven't been writing here either. I guess I've been on an unannounced hiatus. I'm back, I think, in a quiet sort of way. Starting to catch up with the blog-reading to see what everyone's been up to. Dipping my toes back in.

I've been active on Facebook and on Twitter. Those feel like very different venues of communication than a blog. Impermanent - Twitter especially, even though the Library of Congress is archiving tweets now. It's like a stream that moves on, and if you don't catch it for a while there are no repercussions. Unlike blogs, where I feel a certain responsibility to try and catch up, at least with some of y'all bloggers with whom I feel a sense of shared history. Lately I've felt more of an affinity for shallow, rapidly moving water than for the depths, I guess.

Boy, that all sounds kind of pompous.

Anyway, I am missing discursiveness and writing whole sentences. I can tell because essay ideas and blog post ideas are starting to bubble up for me. I am thinking that I will make a spreadsheet of them (because I'm that kind of a nerd) and set aside time each day for thoughtful writing. (Because, much as I love Twitter, it's not "thoughtful writing.") Some of that will, I hope, be for this blog.

So my thanks to those of y'all who haven't yet given up on me. I'm here. :)

As for the poetry part of my life. Haven't been writing that many poems - those are from the deep end too, and I've been in the wading pool soaking up some sun - but I've been sending out like crazy. (Well, relatively speaking, for me anyway.) I've had some good results, including a poem in the just-released new issue of New Madrid, and a very encouraging rejection from a very good journal I've been trying to get into since 1988. (I don't name names on rejections, sorry! Superstition, I suppose.) Meanwhile, a far newer and far less prestigious journal asked for some poems, then rejected them with a form email - just to keep me humble, I suppose, as if there were some danger of me becoming a diva at this late date! You gotta laugh. It's a silly game we play, isn't it?

Still no nibbles on the book manuscript, which I intend to pull apart and try to revise it with a fresh eye. I think it's a relatively solid manuscript, but it hasn't been catching attention, and I suspect it could be made better.



I took a little summer vacation last week and made a road trip to Cleveland to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Oddly enough, I learned some things about writing there. Stay tuned. :)