Thursday, October 7, 2010

I Sold a Poem

I haven't submitted any poetry in about a year and a half, but this week I got a contract in the mail from Jack and Jill and they're paying me fifty bucks to publish one of my poems. It's about sledding. So that's fun.

My mother-in-law got selected for jury duty. Most people I know dread jury duty. In fact, I may be the only person in America that would LOVE to be on a jury. Alas, in my thirty-four years I've never gotten the call. What's a guy have to do to be inconvenienced around here?

After lots of submissions and plenty of requests for fulls, I'm pulling my YA off the grid. I know "it only takes one" and all that, but I've gotten very similar feedback on the story and it's quite obvious that the problems are significant and ultimately not fixable (at least, not without drastically changing the story. And I use the word "story" loosely.)

The good news: Almost done with another book.
The bad news: Been "almost done" for months.

10 comments:

Amy Allgeyer Cook said...

Great news about the poem!! Congratulations. :)

Unknown said...

Was wondering what had abducted you.

Congrats on the poem. I'm "almost done" too.

Kelly Polark said...

Congrats on the poem!!

Jenny Maloney said...

Fantabulous!

Tina Laurel Lee said...

Cool about the poem.

And I am the poster child for finishing is possible. I am finally done! Although I am also the poster child for radical changes, not sure that you would recognize the book now, which is a good thing. At least better anyway. And now on to querying hell. And writing another book. See you are so far ahead of me it is ridiculous.

Jonathon Arntson said...

Just keep swimming.

Betty (Beth) said...

Congrats, Murph!

Anita said...

You know what got my manuscript done? I decided I'd write 1,000 words a day NO MATTER WHAT. And the sucker got done.

About the book you gave up on: I feel honored to have read it.

chris said...

Well done! Getting paid/published for short fiction is so hard to do (I think, anyway) so that's quite an accomplishment. Plus, your Spartans, I mean, yeah... you've got to be feeling pretty good about that right now.

Heather Kelly said...

Congrats on the poem! And for having a level head. And for being almost done with another novel.