I'm Getting Published

So I got a little distracted over the past week or two by health woes (and health wins) and just work in general. Sometimes it's so hard to focus on the things I want to do when I have to focus so hard on the things I need to do, like pay bills, try to keep my writing business going, cook and clean, caretake my elderly cat, etc.

But today I got pulled back in a creative direction when I learned that one of my poems was accepted for publication in an upcoming literary anthology.

Say what?

Yep, I'm getting published.

This is the first win for me, although admittedly I haven't tried very much so far. I've submitted some work to the New Yorker twice, and I also submitted my poetry to one other literary journal, but otherwise I haven't done anything with my writing aside from slogging my way through trying to fix it, or letting it sit dark in a drawer, or sending it into oblivion in cloud storage.

This particular poem (you can read it here) I had only submitted to one other place - the other literary journal I mentioned above - and it was accepted after just those two attempts. I'd say that's not at all normal. Although perhaps this publication didn't have very high standards.

But isn't that the thing we always tell ourselves? That really, whoever liked our work must have not known what they were doing anyway. Or, likely they didn't have enough "good" work to choose from. It's all part of the story we tell ourselves to ward off future peril when we feel like we couldn't possibly be good enough to succeed in what we're trying to do.

I've been pretty successful in straying from that line of thinking today, mostly because I'm really excited to see my name in print somewhere. But as the excitement has worn off this afternoon, the doubt has crept back in. Which I think is not unexpected, although my job is to divert it elsewhere. Because I seriously don't have time anymore to live my life in self-doubt.

Now that I have this win, maybe I'll get back to my work. I have a lot that I want to write about but I just struggle to find the energy and focus after dealing with everything else. But I know I'll get there. Every time I stop setting aside time to write (or otherwise don't accomplish much with my personal work), I tell myself that I'm just taking a break. And breaks are ok. As long as it's not a permanent disconnect and I do, eventually, come back to it.

I'll be back soon.