An Update

An update on where I am and what’s coming next.

Hello, happy weekend to you, dear reader. Thanks for being here.

Things have started to settle now. The shock of moving and life turning inside out is wearing off, and thankfully, taking the productivity paralysis and what I like to call “failure panic” with it as it goes. Not a moment too soon, either. During the “failure panic” phase, I became hyper-aware of the closing submission periods and publication prize deadlines of every small press considering full-length collections. Case in point- I now have a poetry collection out for consideration for a local small press publication prize I probably shouldn’t have sent. (More on that a little further down.) 

I spent the week considering my work and the possible paths forward for various projects, namely the hoard of poetry, essays, and narratives I’ve amassed over time and the fiction works I set aside for better and brighter days. The fiction, that’s still for another day. The rest is ready to be released into the world, so it’s time to pivot and focus on the next steps.

The path to traditional publication for this kind of literature isn’t the same as it is for novels. I dove deep into everything I could find about traditional publishing poetry, essays, and narratives. What I found might surprise you. It made me rethink everything I know about traditional publishing and what I want for my work, my readers, and myself as a writer.

I need to ask myself some tough questions and do my due diligence before I go submitting willy-nilly and end up doing something I’ll regret later, like panic-submitting to a contest even though it meant stripping the vision I had for the collection down to fit their contest rules. I thought any submission was better than no submission at the time but I’ve since learned better and regret being so hasty. It is what it is, and my odds of winning are slim to none, anyway.

Anywho… I’m going to share what I’ve learned, what decisions I’ve made considering that information, my vision for this work, and my current position in the literary world. I’ll let you in on my plan going forward and the steps I take along the way with long-form articles and essays on Medium, quick posts and reels on social media, and maybe some videos on YouTube if I can find the time to devote to that. As always, you’ll hear about it before it happens and see it first right here on Ko-fi. 🖤-C

P.S. Don’t have a Medium subscription? No problem. I always post a copy here on Kofi for my coffee peeps.

Disclaimers-
1-If you follow me on other long-form/article format sites, like Medium, for example, you may see a version of this update optimized for that platform over there in the coming days.
2- I am not an expert in publishing. I’m figuring out what works for me as I go and I share my personal experiences. Yours may be very different.
3-some of my articles may contain affiliate links and I might earn some pennies if you use them.