I've been planting a few smaller writing gig seeds here and there, mostly to fill in on the days where the obligations are less and make some more cash. I've been thinking about things I could/would like to write about and seeking things out. Over the weekend I submitted a sample piece for one site, but got a (very nice, but still a ) rejection this morning. It was followed by a lit mag rejection I'd been waiting on for some of the GRANATA poems. Later in the day, another e-mail from something I'd impulsively applied for and I thought for sure before I opened it, it was surely a no, being a long shot, but to my amazement it was a request for an interview next week, so it was not, at least yet, a three rejection day.
As a writer, I am used to rejection, and now that things are much more stable anyways in the freelance department, they are not tied to buying groceries and paying rent. But most would just be nice things to add to my roster and thicken my portfolio and bank account. But the nos still sting with that old sting. Poems matter less in the grand scheme of things, since those are always unpaid and shots in the dark, no matter how well I feel my work fits a journal. But since I submit so little, and am usually super jonesed about where I do send work, they seem far crueler than if I were just making a circuit of journals and ping-ponging (like I used to do.)
Meanwhile, I wrote more poems about Persephone, and pieces for the gigs I have landed--today, one on Bridgerton inspired interiors for HD and lesson notes about Euripides Hyppolytus. Finalize and submit a dictionary entry for Worthpoint on antique school textbooks I drafted yesterday. Think more about things I would like to write about if given the chance. I'm hoping to finish GRANATA's first draft by the end of the month or at least mostly be done, largely because another project has been creeping in some days and I am excited to give that my full attention.
