wisconsin review

well yesterday i sent two poems to the wisconsin review. hopefully they will get published. they are two poems that i think work great as a set. i wrote them in the style of america tanka. the american tanka magazine isn't accepting works right now, so i thought i would send these poems somewhere else. hopefully they will get in. but wisconsin review says it takes 4-6 months to get a response. sigh. oh well. i like them and think that they are worthy of getting published, so lets hope that the wisconsin review thinks so also.

no comic review

well graham cracker comics did not use my review for the dark avengers i wrote. i was a little sad when i saw that but there's nothing i can do. they used someone else's review for the comic. this person's review was way meaner then mine was. so whatever. reviews and i don't get along anyways. i don't like critics and that's what i am when i write a review. but now that they didn't post my review, i'm determined to write another one and have them post that one. i will have them post one of mine! once they do i will put the link here so you all can read it. i will have a review with graham cracker comics posted!

edit: so i talked to my boss and the reason my review didn't get published for graham crackers is because he didn't send it in. way to go jimmy (my boss).

on getting published

while i'm excited about the many different projects i'm working on i figured i should share the good with the bad. not everything i work on will be published. that is just a fact. sadly. and i figured if i'm going to do an accurate blog about a writers world i should share some of the downs as well as the ups. so here are some of my writing downs. usually i have about 4 different poems out in the world getting looked at to see if they will get published. and this morning i just got an email from beeswax magazine saying that they didn't accept my poem i sent them. which makes me a little sad. i thought it was a good poem. but the key to sending your stuff out into the writing world is that you must have tuff skin. and i do, it just makes me a little sad to see my stuff not get accepted. but i like the poem and think it is worthy to get published so i'm going to send it somewhere else.

i have a mini up for getting published. i sent a poem to golf coast literary journal and it had been a little bit since i had heard anything, so i sent an inquiry about it. they emailed me back saying that they are still looking at it and i will have an answer soon. so hopefully that means they will publish my poem. the poem i sent them is my favorite that i've written so far and i truly think it deserves to get published. and if i get published with this place, i get paid! woot woot for that.

getting published is hard so when i do get picked i jump for joy. i've been published twice, i've won a writing contest at the university of wisconsin-parkside that paid me a $200 bond and i used to write for uw-parkside's newspaper so i got published in that once a week. so that is always nice. now if only i could get published more. but hey this all just comes with the territory. it's a hard business out there. but if i can keep my skin tuff and stick it out, i just know i can make it.

photography into poetry

so i've recently bought a new camera and i've very excited about it! it's a film version of the rebel ti slr. i've always loved taking photo's with my kodak point-and-shoot but i've also always loved the fancy photo's that artists take with their slr's. so jeremy has been letting me barrow his family's old slr camera so i can take some nice black and white photo's with it (i just love[!] black and white photo's!). And jeremy is an amature professional photographer so it helps a bunch when i have any questions. this is me using the old camera.

so you're asking why am i posting this here. well i'm posting this here because i'm excited about the inspiration the photo's will give me for my poetry. in one of my poetry books it says to look at photo's to try and get inspired. so i already have some photo's i can look at. but now i can take photo's whenever i want, without having to wait until i see jeremy again so i can use his slr, and take all the photo's i want. whatever strikes my fancy that i might get inspired later about i will just snap it and take it home with me. later on when i'm looking at my photo's i might get inspired by a photo i took and write a poem about it. so besides just being excited that i can take more photo's on my own with a fun new camera, i'm also excited about the poetry implications there are!

comic review

so i've written my first review for graham cracker comics. i wrote a review for the dark avengers #9. when it's up, i'll put a link so you all can go and read my review. i'm not a huge fan of writing reviews. i feel so weird putting my opinion out there saying whether something was good or not. who am i to say that. but my boss asked me to do it this week and so i did. i liked it enough that i'll probally do it more often.

will you be my superhero?

so i've started working on my superhero poetry. i was listening to different kinds of music yesterday at work and it got me inspired. i was listening to the spiderman soundtrack from the first movie. there's a song on there called hero by nickleback (i believe) and it got me thinking. i also listened to the song invincible by ok go. both of those song i wrote down some lyrics that got my mind thinking about the dilemma's of a superhero. so then i started jotting down some quick stanza's that were popping into my mind. today i'm going to try and put a more coherent poem together. the place i'm submitting my work to is taking up to 6 poems. so if some of the stanza's don't work together, i can try and use them in another poem. the poetry is supposed to be about the superhero condition (instead of the human condition). i quote from their website: "Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman. Spiderman. Each of these characters is an American superhero, born out of such ideals and idiosyncrasies as magic, the supernatural, the marginalized, and the desire to rise above circumstance and not only ‘fit in,’ but become a role model of sorts. America has long been fascinated with the expression of super-individuality—as if we can all be larger than life. Our obsession with the “invincible self” manifests itself in the form of superheroes. This anthology is meant to illuminate—through poetry—the nuances of such a relationship with self and the “large” individual." so i'm totally excited about writing these poems. i think i have a good shot at getting published in this anthology. but one never knows and can just hope. so keep your fingers crossed!

controversy writing exercise

so i'm always on the look out for different books that will help me write. whether it's inspirational books, how to books or anything else that will help me with writing. well i have a book called the daily writer by fred white. it's sub title is 366 meditations to cultivate a productive and meaningful writing life. so every page in the book is a different day and it then gives you a different inspiration on what to write that day. well for day july 3 the idea is controversy. and the idea was to write both sides of a controversy in a story. don't have them spewing crap at each other without listening, actually have it as a meaningful conversation. besides the writing excersice it also helps you look at both sides of a controversy that you probally wouldn't normally look at. well i picked abortion. which in our country is a HUGE controversy; to say the least. (and if you know me, you know me as a huge advocate for the right of choice. but choice in all things, i just believe that you should be allowed to have the choice. you have every right to not want an abortion but it's when you say i can't have one either then, because you think it's wrong, is when i dissagree with you.) so i went to the library and got a whole bunch of books on abortion. i made sure that i got pro-choice books and pro-life books. and then i just started reading the books and wrote down in my notebook, anything i thought that was important. i'm not fully satisfied with all the imformation i have; though i think it's one of those issues that i would never be fully satisfied. but i've started to plot out what the charactors would say to each other. what one person would start out to say and then finding the counter agrument in the notes i have. it's been really interesting look at the other side of the table and seeing what their arguement would be. this story isn't anything i would publish but it's a great writing exercise. i've enjoyed it so far and i'm looking forward to actually writing out the story.

making ranting into reality

so i've actually sat down and thought about a manners book. not just me ranting and thinking i should do it. i've actually come up with some ideas of what could happen in the book. for sure i would need a scene on the train. most of my human contact with manners comes from me riding the train back and forth from my boyfriend jeremy's house to my house. i would have a couple scenes that depict different things that have happened to me before on the train. it's just a must! too much has happened to me on the trian that is just horribly rude. but to add another part that would need to be added to the book would be car music. i know when i'm in my car, i play my music loud. but i don't do it at the wee hours in the morning. and i don't have it so loud that even with my windows closed, my neighbors can hear it on the second floor. that's just crazy loud and uncalled for at 5am. again, manners people, manners! so yeah, i'm actually plotting out a manuscript for this manners book. we will see how it goes.

in other news. there is a poetry site that is looking for superhero poetry. well that's just up my ally! the poem is supposed to be about the idea of the superhero. so yeah, i'm totally going to write something to go for that. hopefully it will get picked and then published! that would just be amazing! for i'm totally in love with comics and poetry. it's like the best of both worlds.

celebrate banned books!

banned books manifesto

banned books week september 26 - october 3 2009.