A Decade Out And What's Next?

The blogger at Plough Monday, to which I subscribe, recently announced he was closing the blog. His notice was short and went right to the point:

Hello all. I am closing my blog, Plough Monday. I am doing so because I want to redirect my writing efforts towards publishing in literary journals and magazines.  And I have found that my writing here works to undercut this redirection.

My blog will be visible for a short while, and then it will close.

Thanks for reading.

I told Warren that the news gave me pause. The evening before the Plough Monday announcement, I was looking back at my older posts and I realized I have been blogging for over a decade. My first post was in March, 2009.

A decade.

That's a lot of words. That's a lot of posts, this being the 723rd.

And what about my writing? My other writing?

What does that even mean: my other writing?

There is the middle school novel, now about three-quarters done. I recently returned to it for the first time since—wait for it—September 2017.

Yeah, September 2017. But who's counting?

There is the poetry, with my averaging about three submissions a year for the last three years. I am garnering exactly one acceptance a year, the latest being in the Licking River Review.  (I don't know when publication will be.) If I were in the major leagues, that would give me a batting average of .333, which is nothing to sneeze at, but I'm not so sure those same stats hold true in the publication world.

If I spent more time writing poetry and sending it out, would I get more acceptances?

There is my almost monthly column for The Myeloma Beacon. I began writing that in early 2013, over six years ago.

The truth is I wasn't expecting that I would live long enough to see five years of columns, let along be well into my seventh year.

Do I hit reset? Do I redirect my efforts?

I'd like to finish that novel. (I have drafts of other novels, aimed for the adult reader, but this one is near and dear to my heart.)

I'd like to write more poetry. (I came home from Nashville with a poem roughed out, which I tore out of the notebook and stuck in the pile of other poems I have roughed out but not returned to in too many weeks and months.)

I'd like to figure out how to write more. But I also know myself well enough to know I hold other values dear into which I put my time and energy. My marriage. Family. Friends. This community. Reading. Our Symphony. My work at Court. Pies. My garden.

So for now, I am just thinking about the Plough Monday announcement, just thinking about my writing, and just thinking about...what's next.