A tad ticked

Ticked at the FW paper that lists subsidy press publications along with legitimate press publication. For those who try to write and get published through regular channels have a rough time of it as is. Then they ran a release for "new authors" which should have been an add instead of an announcement. Pity the writers who show up and find they have to pay to get in print. And yes, I've heard of Thoreau and Grisham and all the other "successful" self-publishers, but that doesn't make it any less than a scam. Warn writers of these places before they end up in POD hell.

Accepted-I hope

Grace? Dame Fortune? God?
My first novel, a YA fantasy has been accepted by a small press--Blue Pomegranate Press. They're a start-up with a focus on Lutheran fiction, so my book is a perfect fit. No advance, but 20% royalties. Limited press run (OK the editor and his wife make the books by hand.) He has a marketing plan and has tapped into enough interested folks to buy.
This is in the early stages. More later as it develops.

From prose to poetry

A statement of the obvious: Prose and poetry are different. This mind-shattering verity hit me while I've been trying to compose a poem for an upcoming class. In prose, I could catch the wave of the story line ride the crest from one part to the next. The narrative would become alive as the characters gave it life. Composing this poem has involved more wrestling with the words. Through poetry the importance of a give word takes on a new importance. Each word bears many facets to the work, like the sound and shape, the history of use, the denotation and connotation, its ethnic and cultural heritage. Anglo Saxon or Latinized Old French? Concrete or abstract? Rich or poor? A recent migrant word or an ancient word with rooted meaning? A native or alien word? Hand-cuffs, manacles, shackles, restraints all do the same thing but use the word and see the difference. No neutrality exists.
For the poem I'm working on I have a beginning and an end. First line: St. Joe bleeds his martyrdom... Last line: Fort Wayne drinks up, unknowing. The middle has yet to be written, and that is what I'm wrestling with.
It will be written on time, to be reworked.
This poetry experience should be a good one.

Busyness

I've almost finished a basement renovation project: doing the room from top to bottom with new ceiling tiles, fresh wall paint, and laminate flooring to mask the error of asbestos tile. The task has held my focus through Christmas break and nothing else got done. It was a way of keeping distracted in activity. I have a habit of distraction. One of my favorite websites is Duckworks, an online magazine for amateur boat builders. I keep checking it because they are going to be running one of my stories. At least that is the reason I delude myself with. The truth is, I spend far too much time looking over boat building projects in the fantastical hope that I'll build one. I went so far as to buy a set of plans. Why the obsession? Perhaps a childhood dream of having a boat, the romance that comes with a boat. A boat symbolizes freedom, regardless of size. Of the two I built two summers past, neither hold more than two people and each carries freedom in its hold. The lone fisherman in a boat on a lake is different than a fisherman on the bank casting a line from shore. The one on the shore is land-locked, tethered to the earth. The one in the boat embraces the fluidity of freedom and can follow the water course wherever it leads.
Looking over boat plans also keeps me from other work, work avoidance, avoiding what else I could be doing, which includes writing. But writing is also a way of freedom. And I want to be free.