Dear Reader,

It has been such a whirlwind the past couple of months so I apologize for not writing and checking in.

In between teaching English at community colleges, writing, submitting, and living something needed to be sacrificed and sleep wasn’t one of them.

So, let’s get this update started. What have I done? What have I created? Am I achieving my goals from my resolution? 

Let’s start with April

Made four submissions (yay!) Got three rejections (womp) and waiting for one more.

 

 

Read a new piece, Confessions of the Child Not Coming, for the Nuestra Palabra 20th anniversary showcase. It was so much fun and it was great to see the old gang again.

Began semi-secret new project, which I don’t want to announce until it is completely finished. Sorry, no update for this.

I’m working on non-fiction pieces! YES!! Flash memoir! Some thoughts from reading Citizen, which is amazing and you should definitely pick up.

Jennie Manning got a couple of raised eyebrows from agents. We’ll see what happens next. She got a deep polish during April which means she’s shining really brightly.

May

 

 

Kinda took this month off. Between grading and submitting grades and knowing that I’d have a relatively active summer, thought I’d take some time off. However, I did finish and submit my piece for the Kimibilo Fellowship. It’s a sci-fi piece and I LOVE it.

June

 

 

So far, I’ve concentrated on teaching creative writing to kids during a two-week camp. That camp just finished. So I’ll be back on the grind and prepping for Kimilibo here in  a few days.

Thoughts about my progress

What do I think of my progress so far this year? It’s okay. I’m always going to push myself for more but I want to increase my number of submissions. However, to do that, I need to concentrate on writing more single, one hit things — flash fiction pieces, poetry, memoir, flash memoir, etc. I’ve written so much on Jennie that I need more stand alone pieces.

My submissions calendar is a bit sparse now. I hadn’t really updated it since taking May off. So I’m going to be adding more due dates and maybe revisiting some of the publications that posted new calls for submissions.

So…here’s the thing with my writing short stories. They all become novels. Seriously, I am having the most trouble with this. Two short stories now have novel heartbeats. So I’m going to retool this resolution to focus more on flash fiction with 1,000 words or less on the page most likely focusing on a single moment. Anything more than that I’ll have another novel project on my hands and NO! that can’t happen again.

Also, I haven’t thought or started translating any of my pieces, which is a goal I had at the beginning of the year. I’m thinking I may lay that aside and concentrate more on making the writing more impactful and deeper. I still want to work in Spanish and in translation but I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Self care: I’m doing it. I’m listening to my body more and to my thoughts and making sure that I’m not overdoing it and that I am expressing what needs to be expressed. I’m also creating art which helps with the healing.  This is extremely important because if I don’t take care of myself, how am I going to create art?

So that’s it. I give myself about a C+ on my goals which means I’ll need to step it up. I think I have a game plan already. There are two pieces that are boiling in my head at the moment that may be ready soon for submission. We’ll see.

Alright everyone, off I go and return to my writing hole.

Write on,