Before my holiday I submitted some things, and one rejection already came in. You know it’s likely and part of ‘the game’, but still a bummer!
I did share a poem[1] I wrote this summer during a presentation moment in Utrecht[2], related to several nature writing workshops I followed.
And I did finally pick up my novel manuscript again. Before the summer I stalled and then completely stopped working on it, and I just didn’t pick it up again for months. This rewritten version so far has 44718 words, and there are still some chapters in the old manuscript that need reworking, which should take it over 50.000 words, and then it is onwards to the new bits, some fresh writing (scary!).
[1] I came to poetry very late. Only a year or so that I am trying things out. I was (and maybe still am) mostly a prose writer (as some poems ultimately find shape prose poems).
[2] Performed a new poem at a reading, inspired by a series of workshops on nature writing I attended earlier this year. There is no greater show of the power of creativity in seeing a bunch of people presenting their work, inspired by the same event, but interpreted and used so differently. Afterwards, there was a book talk by nature writer Robert MacFarlane. I had only ever read Ness, but I am definitely putting some of his books on my reading list.