Anxiety

Last night, I decided to take a break and set aside my novel that is basically about a woman with a lot of anxiety.  It's a dark comedy, my favorite genre.  I like laughing while I'm horrified.  I remember going to see The Shining in the theatre when I was a little girl - that's right, a little girl - and being so desensitized to the genre that I laughed instead of screaming.  Or maybe I screamed and then laughed, then giggled at the continuous suspense in that movie. 

I took an hour long nap and then decided to take the time to research how to get some of my poems published.  It seems to me a reasonable goal to get one - just one - poem published by the end of the calendar year.  I looked through a poetry market book that I have had on my desk for about two months.  I read through the book and found several options for several of my poems. 

Sounds easy, right?  Just decide on one - or multiple publishers since most accept simultaneous submissions.  It's as simple as picking the right publisher for each of my favorite poems, reformatting them to the specifications of each publisher, and then mailing them out.  Couldn't be more simple...just a clerical task...and yet I couldn't do it.  I got hung up on the contests for collections of poems and found myself paralyzed with self-doubt. 

By the end of this weekend, I am going to make myself do it.  I am going to put myself in clerical mode and pretend the poems are not mine.  I am going to pick a few publishers for a few poems, stick to the ones that publish new-be's since that seems the course of least resistance, and choose the ones that allow for simultaneous submissions.  I am going to make a spreadsheet like a very good office worker to keep track of where I sent each poem and its status.  I'm just going to do it, I keep convincing myself...or maybe today I will just write....