days to deadline: 28
semtex can you snort this messages on phone: 1
apples in bag: 1
pages in manuscript: 177
farmers markets to work: 1
folders classified into order: 35
shots of worm tea today: 0
bags of hula hoops: 2
two audio stories live this week:
- Linnet’s Wings’ Audio Competition Winner, Rare Glimpse.
- Red Fez features Under the Table.
folders archived: 33
banh mi sandwiches: 1
cups of coffee: 1
worm tea: 1
homemade beers: 3
great tattoo stories: 1
days to deadline: 30
two new pieces up: one is a reprint of skull of a sheep, at thousand shades of gray, originally published in the New Orleans Review, and the other is my audio non-fiction story, i’ll tell me ma, over at palooka journal.
a new audio story, under the table, is coming out on monday at red fez, and the agent search goes on, and on, and on. mostly the rejections are short and sour, but there are glimmers of hope. one agent wrote, “Thanks for sending the first chapter of the new book along. I liked it—it has heart….I will say that if you finish the novel, it’d be a pleasure to read it and let you know whether I think I could find a home for it.” that alone has to spur on the work.
reading list for this month
- solace by belinda mckeon
- dark lies the island by kevin barry
- in the lake of the woods by tim o’brien
- kino by jurgen fauth
- we the animals by justin torres
days left to deadline: 38
rejections this week: 4
cups of coffee today: 2
flowcharts on desk: 1
pictures of maisie on desk: 1
new stories at fictionaut: 2
agents queried this week: 4
images spreadsheeted: 94
hours maisie slept last night: 10
pitches written: 1
apples eaten: 0
rubber bands on desk: 6
forks on table: 1
pages in new manuscript: 140+
hannah & her sisters times seen: 5
competitions won today: 1
aches & fevers: 1
great phō ga: 1
book recommendations given out: 3
george orwell’s real name: eric blair
pages written: 1
Excited to find out this morning that my audio story, Rare Glimpse, is the prose winner of the Linnet’s Wings Audio Prose Competition! Bill Lantry won for poetry. Check our stuff out when it goes live in June.
Tuesday
It is Tuesday. A great blue heron perches on the wooden fence adjacent to the steps down to theFacilities Management area on campus. As I approach, the bird hunches over, draws back on itself, and flaps into morning air.
Rolls of drawings.
Stacks of CDs.
Layers of Post-it notes.
A broken spacebar.
It is Tueday. In the driveway of our house a woman leads a horse around in a circle. Another woman, a friend’s mother, sits atop the beast, smiling. Oak moths splinter into fragmented hundreds, and a mist falls soft to the earth. Our daughter coos and wide-eyes the horse—her first.
Starbucks cup.
No milk again.
A bundled pile of RFID tags.
A dull muscle ache in left shoulder.
It is Tuesday. Three rejections came today, harbingers of glad tidings, the functional, “Dear James, we have read,” type. In protest I sit at a circular stone table at lunch and write in my notebook for thirty minutes. The results are not very pretty. I use the word, administrative.
Alligator clip.
Print-out of Timecard.
Coil of yellow computer cable.
Headphones.
It is Tuesday. The outline of the islands is clearer than I’ve ever seen it, the water in the channel flat as slicked oil. A hawk strikes for the top of a tall pine, white tail-feathers flashing in the late-evening sun. Earth turns fresh and airy, the nose of a gopher crests the evening air.