Today marks the one year anniversarry of my last day as an Auto Claims Adjuster.

It is, honestly, hard for me to believe it has been a year!

In that time I’ve had more poetry success in all my 10 years before that of trying to get published (granted for 6 years I didn’t try).  I’ve been happier than I ever thought possible and I’ve learned to live very easily within my means.

I gave up a really nice salary, but I don’t miss it.  If anything I spend less money now even though we make less because I don’t need the work clothes, the social gatherings, and the stuff that supposedly made me feel better because I hated my job so much. Oh yeah, and having to replace cars because you wore them out from commuting over an hour each way each day!

Whew.  That felt like a vent.

I would like to do some part-time work but I’m having trouble finding it.  It is like I’m overqualified for everything I apply for. 

But I’m not in a rush.  I just want, someday, to take some of the income pressure off my husband but I’ve never felt better, our house has never looked better.

Now if I could just get the scale to move a little more I’m only down about 20 from when I left my job.  But at least that’s something!

Have a great 4th everyone!

And if you feel like seeing my work go to Main Street Rag and pick up the Summer issue with one of my poems inside $8!

My new laptop has a built in webcam (which is how I took my new Facebook photo, just for fun) and when I was debating getting a new laptop, I knew I wanted to have a webcam.  Why?  I made excuses that I wanted the camera so I could take quick videos if I was out with the laptop, but really it was a largely in part because I wanted to consider trying vlogging.

What would I vlog about?  I don’t know that I wuold vlog about poetry, but perhaps I could then just make this blog about poetry and move towards talking about my weight loss work in the vlog which I think would be of interest to all the people who have wanted to know more about wii fit.

So maybe tomorrow I’ll try it.  Too late in the day today and my hair looks really pathetic

When I received notification of my last poem acceptance (see a few days ago!) I was very excited, of course, but not just because of the publication.  That poem put me over the top on my percentage tracker.  See, I decided to go back to my submission record to try and tabulate how many of my poems were being accepted each year so I coud see if my percentage of accepance goes up each year. 

Each year that I have sent work out I have seen a very small increase.  I just realized, however, that I am sending more work out this year then I ever have in the past so does that mean my percentage is going to end up being lower for the first time in a while?  Is this good or bad?

On one side I am getting the poems out there which also means I am working hard on revising my work and getting feedback.

On the other side I may be sending out too much less than publishable work and/or just holding onto too many poems that I think have potential but are in fact flat?

Decisions. Decisions.

For now I am going to stay the course and keep sending out the work that I feel has merit. I’ll probably wait until the end of the year to really assess the situation.

is a really poor way to start a blog/discussion/thought process about titles, but maybe that is why I want to think about them and my issues working with them.

I don’t know that I have ever written the title of a poem before writing the poem.  I have written essays and/or short stories (on a few rare unpublishable occasions) where a title came to me first and then I proceeded to write the piece to go with it.

But see that statement is why I beg issue with titles and poetry.  A title, for me, seems to lead me to a particular path-a particular expectation-a subject let’s say.  Because of my tendency to read into whatever I am reading in reference to the title, I tend-now-not to really note the title when I am reading poems and other writing.  I try to approach the poem from the first line (unless the title leads into the first line and then I have to go back) and then I read the title afterwards and see if it “works.”

Case in point for me.  I was reading a collection of essays/memoir by Jo Ann Beard entitled “Boys of My Youth” for a course.  SO my reading was already geared to thinking about non-fiction and how a book of non-fiction is structured.  As I read I kept thinking–ok how is the title functioning here?, how do these pieces fit together?–and I found myself sometimes distressed because the essays were more about the women in the writers life than the men or at least those are the characters I was more effected by.  This isn’t true of all the essays but overall I found myself wondering why did she pick that title?

So, what should I do?  I was revising some poems today and one of them now has a long title, as do a few other poems I have that are old because I think the titles give not just a hint of subject but also set up tone.  I’m trying to find a new way to approach my understanding of titles and my use of them.

Any thoughts? Any books/articles/psyciatric help I could get to aid me?

Monday.

oh and btw click through on my flickr link if you get the chance to see the art project my husband finished this weekend.  Now my guest room as some pizazz! Now I just need some guests.

My husband likes to surprise me and he couldn’t help himself when I was drooling about a month ago over the perfect laptop. So I can finally leave his office alone :)  Here I sit typing away on my new HP TABLET PC, no less!  Looking forward to breaking it in.

Sent out some more poems.  Got in some more exercise. Weight not moving, but trying not to be annoyed about that.  Applied for some PT jobs.  Remain hopeful. One rejection slip. And now there is rain. I’ll call it an excellent day.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Watch out, cause the laptop has a webcam, maybe I’ll try to vlog.