News update plus Default State

Writing Update - November 2012

Though I have been writing for many years, life as a writer, particularly in the earlier stages of publishing, is usually full of similiar emotions, at least for me. Some do get lucky. For most, it's constant rejection. You get down, you get back up again and get back to it. After some time, years, it becomes heavy on the heart. You become tired. It's a depressing business. We are all faced with rejection in our lives but creatives seem to extra sensitive souls, especially writers.

Occasionally however, there is good news. I've had a couple of pieces get through the slush just in the past week after months of nothing but bad news.

The good folks at Marco Polo will be putting my video poem Malignity up on their site. They loved it and want it up soon. I'll link to it when it's there.

I've also had a story accepted for publication, one that has been rejected numerous times before. In fact, I was just about to give up on it. Ten literary sites rejected it, one after the other (they don't accept similtaneous submissions, so it's a lengthy process). The eleventh didn't.

The story is called City of Great Large, written in the style of someone with poor English skills. I wrote it in China, based on snippets from what I heard on the street, a type of pigeon English you might say. Much of it was written in the courtyard of a temple. China isn't Europe. It's difficult to communicate. It is possible that some considered it racist or just too experimental. Due to the unusual style I kept the story simple. I thought it an interesting concept and a challenge.

You can draw your own conclusions when it's (finally) published at Wilderness House Literary Review.

http://joshsommers.smugmug.com/

 Trudging forward but going nowhere?

Before I get to a new poem, I've just had an agent look at one of my novels, the second, Oblivion City. Usually they reject you based on a Query letter, but she requested the full manuscript. It was exciting. She took a couple of weeks to get back to me. With a no thanks. (She did say it was a 'great book' but that the market was full of dystopian YA and didn't think she could sell it. A little frustrating as it was finished in 2007).

It gave me hope though, and it was a welcome change in emotion from the usual depressive state following rejection. I'm depressed now but for two weeks it was bliss.

Thems the breaks huh?

 

 

Rembrandt - The Philosopher in Meditation

 

Poem

Default State

He’s feeling good

In a way he can’t describe

Not without certain reservations

But a definite inner charge

Which may be misleading

As it’s not his

Default state.

He’s left wondering, if it isn’t a trick

Something, or somebody

Attempting to catch him out.

Give me a little life on the edge

He decries

And has his way

Until this

Idealistic self-assuredness

Which he must admit

Has thrown him off course.

Now he’s not feeling good

He’s uneasy

Unsettled

All those un words

Which were so distant

Only moments before

While looking over his

Proverbial shoulder

And rubbing his chin.

He realises,

That he is abruptly back to familiar territory

And while it’s not such a pleasant place

It is home after all.



Albert Toft - Spirit of contemplation

Coming soon,

My final video poem for the year, This tiny fortune.

Cheers