I had a nonproductive day. I did my blog entry and I went to the journal writing group. I shared the story with them. I had not written a new poem and could not find the old one I thought I would share, which was also about my struggle with doubt and how God took them away for me. I did not stay for the poetry meeting. I did, however, share my good news with them.
After I ate lunch, I checked my emails and I had one from the publisher of Cram 8. I am one of 32 poets who will be represented in the issue that will be given out free to anyone attending Poetry Fest, so I will be getting recognition as a poet. I told you already that I will be reading one of my poems at the Poetry Cram too. That’s on April 24 at the Harold Washington Library here in Chicago. I don’t know what order we will be reading in, so I can’t say exactly what time mine will be, but the Cram will be from 2 to 4 PM.
I have a feeling that after this event I will hear from people who are acquaintances of mine who I did not even know attended the event. I may even be contacted by people I don’t know and make some new friends. I’m looking forward to it.
Today, I will be going to see Hurt Locker and I will probably be inspired to write something about that movie and what it portrays. I have not begun editing my draft of my pigeon story yet, but I know I will have to do that soon. I can’t afford to wait too long or else I will lose that emotional feeling that this is good stuff, like I said before. If I get to that point it will be very had to submit it for the course, but since the lesson was for planning that story I will have to submit it. This is good practice for working with an editor, because after you send out a query if it is accepted that is the work you have to turn in, you can’t just say you lost interest and start something else.
That is an advantage of writing short stories, usually they don’t ask for a query letter and want to see the entire story. So, it either is or is not accepted. If it is not, you can either keep sending it out and hope to hit the right publisher, edit it and try again, or scrap it and begin another project. For people who have difficulty finishing what they start, it may result in hundreds of first drafts with no sales, because it is easier to start over than to keep at the same piece and improve on it. So, this is a good discipline.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE! 
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