poetry seems to be better written in the moment; fiction seems to take a while to mature and morph into something with meaning.

while a couple of the rejections have been encouraging, I still have nothing accepted, except perhaps by a new magazine that may or may not have any idea what it's doing, bless their enthusiastic twentysomething hearts. and even that was nonfiction, which after all is what I (used to) do for a living.

most of the poems have still only been rejected once or twice. some I've put aside as either bad or enjoyably but unpublishably self-indulgent. the stories are going through a similar process. no major rewrites have happened yet. the ones I continue to send are, I think, OK. I think. One piece, which is 3500+ words, is just plain good. but it's long. too long for short story comps, and it's not a short story. too long for magazines. too short for book publishers, who anyway get thousands of unsolicited stuff every year.

funny how I want to be "published" when my blog - no, not this one - gets 20-30 readers a day. but it's not writing. it's a diary, a journey that hooks people in because of certain dramas in my life.

from time to time I consider merging my public blog - which carries my name - with this and with my better-read anonymous blog. and if any of my stuff gets published Bluebug will not be a secret. it's not meant to be, I guess. it's just a separate, purpose-built space.

in theory, I could just whack all my stuff up online and consider it "published". but it's not the same as a moderated, edited journal, is it? in the uncertainty and fumbling of learning to write, one does crave approval of one's peers and of editors whose opinions have gained them a readership.

not writing much right now - the odd poem about death. it's time to consolidate some rejected poems and send 'em off again, I guess.

channelling my inner Johnny Depp by sitting down to write in a tatty dressinggown the moment the baby goes to sleep.

the phone rings: the childcare centre. do I want to bring him in today?

no. It's tempting. I have a redraft to do. but I also have a babysitter tomorrow, and I intend to make this work, to learn to somehow write around the baby. that way lies madness, I know. but here goes...

luckily I wasn't drinking my tea this morning when I opened my TWO rejections. one, for a long and experimental piece, was not unexpected. what I found funny was that the very gently worded form rejection letter includes the sentence "Please don't despair." folks, I have enough on my plate without topping myself over your opinion of my writing.

the second was much, much better. it called the piece "a lovely little story" and offered to reread if I rewrite. which I will do, but not before sending off my very best couple of pieces to the same editor. warmish irons and all that.

I have finally started reading Ulysses (the Joyce version). I may never be able to write anything again.

story titles: Yelling at Frogs

and from Marion Halligan: The First Thing About Love (as in you don't know...)

The truth about the babyboomers: you can't assess a life, or a generation, until they're done. and the particular pack of babyboomers I once envied is now broken, mostly through alcohol and lack of direction. they have lost jobs, houses, kids. a couple - K & J - escaped to the rainforest.

and the whole babyboomer thing. is it right to call my annoyance at having to define myself as not one of them Derridean? that I want to step outside their framework altogether?

random scribblings from midnight:

that my insomniac nights are like a long, dark plane flight. you wake up, you sink back, you lie awake, you drift, you read, you wonder and wonder "when will we arrive (at morning?"


that my inability to conceive of the non-space that is supposed to lie outside real space is related to my inability to conceive of what death is like.

a story: generations of near-lovers never quite getting together.(inspired, strangely enough, by Camilla's opening line to Charles). swapping genders? a resolution?