Last night I stayed up a little later than planned (with Top Design playing in the family room so I could peek in at it occasionally-- Todd Oldham is my favorite person) to do submissions. When I finished I had two--one to Poetry and one to Smartish Pace. I haven't submitted to Poetry in years and Smartish Pace is one of my favorite journals.
The whole process took me longer than it should have. I started second-guessing my poems. What would they like? What would they like? I was my own Burger King commercial trying for these journals to have it "their way," yet what was "their way?" What were the poems they would like? It's a strange psychic guessing game with no real way of finding the answer (except submitting).
This is where I can over-think when submitting to journals.
Once I put my poem to the Seattle Bus Poem people in the mailbox, walked home only to realize ten minutes later that I had (in my mind) *sent the wrong poem!* I raced back to the mailbox to grab my poem, but it was gone. The mailman had taken it away. I was so upset. Of course you know where this is going--that was the poem that was accepted by the poetry on the bus project. The poem I was sure was terrible and no longer my first choice was the one they chose.
As a writer, it's so hard to see our best work when we're in the middle of it. A friend of mine gave me great advice, she said, "When you submit, send 3 poems you think they'll love and one you think they'll hate." It's usually that last poem that is accepted.
But back to my "I did two submissions last night," because the tale has an unexpected and expected ending. On my way to put my finished submissions in this cute vintage ceramic mailbox next to our front door, I remember thinking, "I'm trying to carry too much" (as I grabbed my half-filled coffee cup) and then just as I imagined dropping my coffee cup it happened, coffee mug, submissions, a thank you note to a friend go flying across the hardwood floors. And there in a mess of yesterday's coffee--my poetry submissions, wet, stained, and definitely not something I'd be able to send in. I know I'm from a coffeetown, but stinky coffee-smelling poems do not need to be proof of it.
It was 12:22 p.m. I know because I looked at the clock, a sort of sleepytime punishment where acknowledging that it's after midnight made me feel even more tired. So, I went back into my office to see what could be salvaged. I almost went to bed instead of fixed these, but it's sort of like cleaning my house at night, no matter how late I stay up, it's always such a reward to wake up to something that doesn't need to be done. So redid my submissions--which wasn't too hard because there was no over-thinking, there was no thinking at all. I put them in clean envelopes, tried to save the stamps (I lost one butterfly stamp) and re-addressed them. I was in bed fifteen minutes later.
So, that was my night of submitting. Two submissions, an evening of Top Design, and cleaning up a half of cup of coffee while the rest of the house slept. A strange poetic life, but I can't complain.
