Monday, August 09, 2010

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. :)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I am looking forward to some new poetry springing from that vacation you finally got to take :)

You couldn't be more right about your assessment of blogs v. twitter.

Lyle Daggett said...

Hi, Anne. All of your talk about the wading pool, etc., is making me thirsty right now -- it's been stinky hot here for the past week, and supposed to be at least a few more days yet. Lots of heavy weather the past couple of months, trees down, flash floods in the streets, etc. Ah, summer in the vast hinterland.

I've been somewhat lying low because of the heat, been a little over a month since posting anything in my own blog, though will get back to it whenever the weather breaks. Meanwhile getting a little writing done, and a lot of reading.

My only experience with Cleveland is early one morning in January, nearly 40 years ago, watching ancient Popeye cartoons on a coin-operated T.V. set in the Greyhound station, waiting for a bus out of town. I've never been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, though it would have to be one cool place.

Nic Sebastian said...

Welcome back!

Anonymous said...

Glad you're back! And congratulations on New Madrid!

Jeannine said...

Glad you're back too - and wish you fruitful revisions and new poems :)

I agree with you about blogs. I can't give them up for twitter and facebook.

Anne Haines said...

Thanks, all. :)

Just to clarify - I find tremendous value in both Twitter and Facebook. I don't see "shallow" as necessary a damning quality (and I'm going to neatly sidestep the obvious pun there -- !); sometimes a quick-running, dinky little creek is exactly what a person needs. I think there's value in both the shallow and the deep, and probably in whatever lies between, too. Why, yes, I am a Gemini... :)