Give yourself a gold star

… or a silver one, or anything shiny as a way of marking your achievement. As you can see from the above picture, I keep a note of everything I send out. If I get an acceptance, I mark it with a foil star. Childish? Perhaps. But it works like a little affirmation that I’m doing the right thing, a way of acknowledging that something I’ve created has found its way out into the world.  I think I got the idea from reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, although I’ve been doing it for such a long time now I might be mistaken. Anyway, I know some poets use spreadsheets, but I like the hands on approach!
I’ve featured a notebook page from about 18 months ago when I had a real push on submissions. Lately, I’ve been so tied up with the novel I haven’t had any poems to send out. I miss that, polishing a poem, sending it out, the occasional acceptance that leaves you on a high for a while. Writing a novel is a very solitary activity – poetry is far more sociable (for me anyway, attending various workshops and readings etc).  I can’t wait to get back to all that.
Anyway, I’m giving myself a gold star this week, not for having anything accepted, but for completing the first draft of the book. Not that it’s finished in the true sense of the word – too many shifts in time and viewpoint. I know it will take a lot more work to give it a coherent structure, but the words are there, typed up, and I’ve done what I set out to do – complete the first draft. I feel like I could do with a block of time now, to dedicate to the editing, but that’s not likely to happen in the near future. So, I’ll have to just try to do what I can in the evenings and at weekends and see where that leads.
In the meantime, award yourself a gold star for following me on this creative journey. It’s great to be part of an online writing community. The blogs I read are a constant source of inspiration and I hope my posts inspire you in some small way.