Category Archives: January 2012 challenge

No-Comfort Zone Challenge for the Week ending July 1 2012

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So, this week how did I do on my challenges?  As I noted last week, I have almost finished my next chapbook: edited the poems, formatted and put everything into the template I have. Designed my cover and played with fonts. Now I am waiting to decide whether or not I will keep the poems that are out on submission or change the title and remove those two. I can wait a bit longer, see if I hear back.

But in the meantime, gave myself some eyestrain, so

That's the name for this thing that you look t...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have to watch how many hours at the keyboard and glaring screen.  I did, however, make an appointment to have my annual eye exam. (YUCK!)  I hate those because I am always afraid of “failing the test.” Yes, I know. I can’t fail it. But I can make mistakes about what I can see and how well. I suppose I imagine myself doomed to walk around in glasses that

Pinhole glasses, a kind of eyeglasses.

Pinhole glasses, a kind of eyeglasses. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

skew my vision. Sometimes I just have to laugh about how silly my phobias and fears are.

In the meantime, I have submitted four poems to the Rattle Poetry Prize contest, and selected another four for my next magazine submission. I thought I knew where they were going but they don’t match the theme coming up for Room, so I will get them off to a different place, and work on others for Room.

I think I’ve figured out why getting submissions out is so difficult for me. I was thinking about it yesterday. It is sort of like going someplace I’ve never been before. I research and mapquest and used to even drive there if I could the day before just so I would know where I was going.  So here, submitting, is like that. My poems are going to go someplace they haven’t been before. My old fear about “doing things right”.  Silly, when I look at it that way, isn’t it? Well, let’s see what insight does for me. (Yeah, I just looped back to the fears and phobias, didn’t I?)

Tangles

Tangles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cheers,  till next time!

Carol

No-Comfort Zone Challenge Week Ending June 24

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This week I heard that two of my poems have been accepted for inclusion in Rope Dancer, an anthology of poet-members of The Ontario Poetry Society. So, I am happy to have submission success news for this week! Still a number of submission deadline  info sitting on my desk so I am hoping to get some of those into the mail this week.

And, I have put together my next chapbook, and working on that to fine-tune the fonts and poem order. Perhaps I will have a new launch this summer or early fall, just need to wait and see. I have one poem that has been submitted elsewhere, so I am sort of hoping to hear on that before I go ahead. Otherwise it has to come out of the chapbook, and then I will need a new title for the book too! Fortunately, I have already several options for that.

No-Comfort Zone Challenge Week ending June 17th

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This week I completed a commitment to participate as a volunteer and judge in the 2nd annual Arts Carleton Place Youth Art Competition. Yesterday’s poem was a bit tongue-in-cheek about the event, which was in association with the Lambs Down Festival held in Carleton Place, Ontario.

From the Arts Carleton Place tent, we could just see the field where the sheep were being herded by a border collie, who was doing an excellent job. Around the corner, there were sheep being sheared, and fortunes being told, and many interesting items for sale from cupcakes to CDs of pan-pipe music. If you were hungry, you could indulge in maple syrup taffy or Belgian waffles, lamb burgers or Carib-style chicken. I don’t think I could have partaken of lamb after watching the sheep on the hoof.Besides, I was there to help out with the Arts Competitin. It was good to see so many young artists and poets taking part, and to see this particular challenge through to completion.

And yesterday I began reading The Craft and Business of Writing, to try to get a better focus on and approach to the practical side of being a poet. Is this more procrastination or is it a way to get past this block I have about submitting? I am not sure, but I am hoping that it will get me moving.

On a much more personal note, I also ended an on-off-on-off relationship that spanned the last six years. No going back this time. It was not a smooth closure, but a final one.

No-Comfort Zone Update Week ending June 10 2012

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Well, for last week I found out that I have been accepted to participate in the next issue of TheLight Ekphrastic. That will be coming up in August, I believe. I submitted 5 poems and received 3 art pieces back in return. I am to write a poem based on one of those. Then the artist creates a piece based on one of my 5 submitted poems. Both poems and both art pieces then appear in the online issue.  It is a challenge, but it is a good way to stretch myself as a writer.

This week I took my new camera with its 24x zoom out into the countryside for a test drive. I am not a photographer by any means, but I would like to start taking my own pix for use on the blog and perhaps in my chapbooks. A 3x zoom was not going to do it for me. I can see that I have added another challenge to my weeks to come, learning how to use this beast.  So far, I can figure out how to take closeups of flowers. That doesn’t sound like I have progressed very far, does it?  Interesting that the next time I took the old camera out it had completely died. I am taking that as an affirmation of my decision to make this purchase. It is no longer an indulgence, so I can feel good about it! (AND, I did go back and get a refund when I found a competing ad with a better price. So that was another challenge met, since I tend to let those things slide…)

Of course, looming over my shoulder is the other challenge: submissions.  Not much done there yet. But it is still high on the list!  C.