Timing

I can identify. A friend told me yesterday of a friend of hers (yeh, the anon'ty is deliberate) who's having a hard time believing in her brilliance. Go figure. That self-doubt, insecurity, fear, thin skin, call it like you see it, is the thing that stops most of us from flowering into the radiant-powerful creatures we are. We sometimes chastise ourselves even for that feeling, "Oh," we sometimes say, "what is the matter with me that I am not convinced of my resistance-melting fantabulosity, like Nietzsche was, or Stein..." And feel worse. --- I think this is why it's called bravery: we do the thing anyway, while feeling that small, do it anyway. And then we remind ourselves of what we have done that worked, and how much work we are doing. It helps.

List of What Is Working:
The Motif Series of poems is under consideration at Beloit.
The Proposal is still under consideration at seven presses.
The Poetry Manuscript is still under consideration at the Motherwell Prize.
The Conference Paper is s. u. c. at the Irigaray Circle.
Two job apps replying to adds and seven cold letters are going out this week in to colleges in the area.
(To say, hey, I'm here, I can work part-time for you... because everyone needs new blood in their adjunct pool.)
The Murdoch Anthology is coming along, but needs much attention just now, from me, as there are big bumps in the co-editor's worlds.
The Stein Chapter is getting written in disjointed fragments, but it's getting written, and I can quilt it together later. Though the temptation to work on AnyThing Else get stronger all the time.

So, the work comes, and the world is apprised, and limbo of waiting is often followed by the thump of rejection, and that's just how it is. It's hard to keep working when we have little sense of how our work is being heard out there, and harder when most of what comes back is "no", and the strength to remember that this kind of "no" is usually not personal, often having to do with publishing mojo that is beyond the control of us, the editor, or even the gods. It's hard to keep up the healthy self-esteem without some positive feedback. It Just Is.

So just when I was feeling that lack, and just when I was set up to send out these cold letters, there was that conversation and there were those job postings, and the world will work with you/us/me -- just very much in its own way, but more so the more we tune in.