One of my flash fiction pieces has been accepted for publication on a gay flash fiction website. After all the recent rejections I’ve had, it’s nice to garner a win. Sure, it’s a small, unpaid market, but a win is a win at this point. Exposure is important, too. Just getting my name out there a bit more is important.
I spent a lot of this past weekend working on submissions, sending pieces off via the USPS and online submissions. There’s a bit of momentum for submissions at the moment. I vowed to send one out every time something was returned or rejected. The time between, the licking of the wounds time, has grown a few days shorter. It’s good to have some momentum.
NaNoWriMo seems to do that. Because I’m writing (almost) every day–I missed two days so far in November–I get that energy surge out of the way. And, because I’ve been creative early in the day (that’s mostly when I write) that leaves the rest of the day to be productive. Of course, there’s usually classes and workshops and all sort of other scheduled activities that fill those hours, but because of the holiday (and a lack of travel plans) I’ve had the better part of five days with nothing scheduled. So nice to have time to write and read and work on projects uninterrupted.
For years, that was my norm. I had a lot of time available and I got a lot of creative work done–and some busy work, too. This is the journey. Having experiences. Doing some work. discovering who we are because of who we were, where we’ve been, and where we are today. And, knowing that it continues forward, whether we’re part of it or not. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, the idea of legacy and the point of legacy when there’s no one to pass anything on to in the end. What the point of it all is. If there is a point.
I don’t have any answers. That’s something I’ve recently figured out. I know some things, but that knowing doesn’t put my in a place of answers. It only puts me right where I am: writing and teaching because that’s what I like to do.