🎅🏻lisa writes stuff issue #26 🎄 Poetry is sublime
Also, an update on NaNoWriMo
Dear Internet,
Another poem of mine has been accepted and I was surprised when I got the email. I’ve been submitting poetry as much as I’m submitting my other work, but my poetry is outpacing other writing acceptances.
When I think of myself as “writer,” I think of myself as the non-fiction variety who struggles writing fiction and poetry. When I look at MFA programs, I look for fiction programs over non-fiction. Do I think I know everything there is to know about non-fiction, no, but I want help with my fiction and getting an MFA seems like a worthwhile endeavor.
I’ve written poetry for years, going back to at least my early 20s. My chapbook, commercial breaks, is one long prose poem. I forget the length it’s been so long since I’ve looked at it. 40 pages maybe? I think about pulling it from Amazon and submitting it to chapbook publishers to get it commercially published.
As I go through my writing, and organizing as one does, I keep coming across poetry about a variety of topics and in a variety of styles. In between the other writing styles, I’ve always written poetry.
Nearly a decade ago, I started buying poetry books and reading about how poetry functions. I felt, and still do, that I don’t understand poetry. But I continue to write it. Maybe I know and write more than I give myself credit for? Possibly.
I just find this concept of me as a poet wild.
The piece will be published in mid-November in Anodyne Magazine’s inaugural issue. It’s to be published online and in print and I get a cut of the profits on the sales.
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I didn’t make it to my writer’s group last night. Mr Lisa and I were wrapped up in HR calls about health insurance which took 1.5 hours. Also, after being glued to my laptop all day working, my brain was mush.
But here it is! November 1! I have a plan today to work on NaNoWriMo after work except I’m not sure on what.
I’m utterly blocked.
I’ve got loads of ideas on where I want the story to go but I’m missing overall plots and definitely subplots. I found an indie novel (cannot remember author’s name or the title of book so drats) that was identical to one of my stories in the design of FMC, her love interest and what he did for a living, and where the story was located.
My story is a paranormal story about three friends who are on different paths in their pagan beliefs and they have a podcast where they dicuss this. The FMC, who is new to the path, comes into her powers pretty quickly when X happens (not sure what). This sets off a train of events where dead bodies start to pile up around her. Two groups are on her her thinking she’s the killer: the pagan community and the local police. She needs to solve the mysteries before she ends up dead.
I see this as a combination of That Witch Life meets Only Murders in the Building meets Station Eternity.
The story takes place in N. Michigan because goddammit, I’m tired of stories in the quaint south or New York. WHY ALWAYS NEW YORK?
Maybe I have something to work with after all?
#
The next issue of Lisa Write’s Stuff is set to come out November 29th and not the 15th. We’ll be on vacation on the 15th (we’re gone for almost two weeks). Since that is the end of the month, hopefully I’ll have an update on NaNoWriMo.
Have a good month and Happy Colonizer Day!
Submission update
78 submissions which includes 55 rejections, 14 pending, 8 acceptances, and 1 withdrawal.
(I’m at 9.75% acceptance rate which is right around the average of 10%.)
Publication
chapbook: commercial breaks
Snippet
This is from the piece “she collected men like coins.” It’s around 600 words so far and I started it years ago. No idea where it’s going or the plot. That’s how I write, really. I have these scenes in my head I need to get down and then I don’t do anything with them.
Reading over the piece, I see I have some notes on where I want it to go. I’m not sure I agree with that direction, so we’ll see what this ends up.
She would grieve upon the breakup. Heartbroken like glass - she would mope and pine for a few days. For the longer relationships, she had been known to cry.
Well, for a bit anyway.
After some time, a week, a day, who keeps track of such things, life would go back to normal. She would teach a few days a week, work as a bookseller a few more. Life was simple. Uncomplicated. Men and friends would come and go, but she longed preferred her cozy house in a cul-de-sac, a tiny whip of a thing, really. The interior furnished with overstuffed club chairs, too many books, and the smell of oranges and cloves hanging around, like staying guests. Acquaintances gently tried to tell her her home smelled like a Grateful Dead concert sans pot, and all she would do is smile.
Mr Lisa makes the best sausage cornbread stuffing,
lisa x