Category Archives: January 2012 challenge

No-Comfort Zone Success this week

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Carol A. Stephen

This week, I made a little progress on submissions by sending a second group of poems off to The Light Ekphrastic. The deadline is tomorrow so I am crossing my fingers on that one.

And I’ve been discussing my fears about travelling with a friend, who assures me that I am quite crazy, just like always! Of course, you need a little of that to be a poet, so it doesn’t really concern me (the crazy part I mean!)

I have a little plan for the upcoming week’s No-Comfort task, but I will keep it to myself for now, so that if nothing else, I have something to share next Sunday about it!

Cheers for now, and keep challenging yourself!

Carol

Outside the Zone this week

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Carol A. Stephen

This week I submitted an article that I had not even thought about submitting till an hour before.  It’s a non-fiction piece about my illness and surgery three years ago, and the fears that  I am now fighting that resulted from that experience.

This took me out of my comfort zone both as a writer who needs to get past a fear of rejection, and by revealing something very personal.
Now I am just waiting to hear if it’s accepted! 
Oh, yes,and I also sent in five of my small stones for potential inclusion in the next River anthology.
 

No-Comfort Challenge this past week

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Carol A. Stephen

This week I had a poem accepted for The Light Ekphrastic’s next issue coming up online soon. And I sent off two to another online journal, The Rose & Thorn.  Fingers crossed!  And I realized where I get bogged down when trying to do submissions is the deciding which poems are suitable and whether or not they are ready.  Often I think they are, but when the time comes, something has changed and I decide that either they are wrong for the publication or still need tinkering.

Besides that, I think I have too many possible places to submit and other projects like my next chapbook that I want to start and I lose that elusive focus I am seeking this year.  I think submitting has become an extra pressure that keeps getting in the way. So, I am going to try to select ONE place to submit and review the poems that might fit it. I am not going to set a goal of one per week right now, I am just going to go through the current calls I have already printed out, and as I review my poems for my chapbook will watch for any that will fit that one call. But my priority will be the chapbook. (or perhaps book, if I have enough poems!)

My challenge for the week to come is to maintain focus on assembling the book poems.  Crossing my fingers!  Carol

31st and final stone: letting go

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Carol A. Stephen

Well, my river journey for January has come to an end. I will be taking part in a different writing challenge for February. The Southeast Review offers a 30-day Adult Regimen for Writers.  I’ve done it a couple of times before, and it is also a challenge, but in a good way. Lots of good writing came out of it last time. So I am looking forward to it. Today’s stone came from two ideas: first, letting go at the end of a journey. Two, how something of us remains attached to objects and places. We may be able to let go of them, but do they let go of us?
Letting go

a house becomes attached to things.
to routines, beliefs. to people.
they all leave, in one way or another.
the house remains, adding another layer,
a patina of its own history, its own connections.
when a house creaks and sighs in winter
it is dreaming its past, memories sinking deep
into its bones.  When the time comes,
the house lets go, knowing its ghosts remain,
a blanket to keep its story warm.

Carol A. Stephen
http://www.quillfyre.wordpress.com