Back in April, one of my poems was accepted for publication. It just came out last week! You can read it here. I’m proud of it, not just because someone else out there saw enough in it to want it (though that’s not nothing). I send out many submissions that never land. I have to at least try to savor one that reaches out and gets through. The reality of rejection is the reason that for many years, I just didn’t send anything out. All the fun of writing, with none of the pain, I thought. I am also proud of it because every time I read it, it still rings true to me. To some extent we are writing just to get at those moments where we’ve written something true, something that can’t be said well in the straightforwardness of everyday language. This poem is an example of that.

It was also fun to write!

I am sending out work pretty regularly now, and it’s getting a bit easier each time. My son is looking for work, and he sits down once per week with me. He sends out job applications while I submit my writing. Last week, he completed six applications to my two submissions, and that’s pretty typical of how it goes. Each submission takes careful attention and patience to meet all the guidelines. Still, I find myself sometimes sending one off and then thinking, wait: did I change that bio to first person like they asked?

My willingness to repeatedly put my heart on the line is one of many ways that, in recent years, I’ve grown to care less about what people think, and dare to take up space. Chris noticed this change in me after a potluck we attended last Saturday for our CSA. We knew almost no one there, but we showed up with our blueberry pie and fennel salad to mingle. There was a time when an event like this would really rev up my anxiety, when I would spend far too much of my time there worrying about what I should say, or whether I’d said the wrong thing.

The farmers had created a CSA bingo board for us to fill out on a walk around the fields, to talk to other CSA members, as we checked off items like: find something orange, or a leak in the drip tape, or a hoe. Upon setting out together, Chris pointed at me and made one of those between us jokes about how he’d found a hoe. Boy, was he surprised when later I trotted out as a story to tell a circle of strangers from our CSA. He said, “Just five years ago, you would have never said that to a bunch of strangers.” I explained to him that though I’d fretted over the right thing to say for most of my life, I’d finally realized that there is no right thing to say. What really works is a willingness to just be willing to speak whatever comes to mind and see if it sticks. Everyone at those sorts of gatherings is just praying that someone will say anything that might spark some conversation that people can add to.

As for how this relates to writing, I’m not just throwing this out and seeing if it sticks. But I am taking the risk again and again that what I’ve written will fall flat, offend, bore, or puzzle readers. And yet, I am doing my best work. It’s all I’ve got to offer. To not offer it is to continue in the myth that I have nothing to offer.

So, I am sending working out every week. Often it falls flat or misses the mark. But I just don’t care anymore. I am offering up what I have, and that is the measure of my success. Did I dare?

I am also showing up to write. My summer schedule is Monday to Friday. I get up and make coffee/stretch/walk the dogs, then I listen to the ten-minute Daily Trip meditation on the calm app and turn off my phone. I’ve been challenging myself to see how long I can leave it turned off each day. I’m trying to write one thousand new words (4 pages) or the equivalent pages in editing (for me that’s twelve edited pages) before doing anything else. Then, I take a yoga break, then I’m back to the writing work until noon. At that point, I can prioritize whatever writing project my heart is calling to that morning. Once the writing is done, the projects and summer adventures can begin. It’s become a kind of prayer that I go through each day, a prayer that has to come first. A prayer that says do not pause and question, or let yourself get distracted by shiny objects or impulsive thoughts that say, me, me, now! Set all of that aside until you’ve performed the prayer. It will all be there waiting for you when the work is done, and you’ll be more prepared for it.

The Daily Trip this morning was about commitment. Meditation, he meant, but it can apply to your creative work as well. The more you commit and show up, he said, the stronger the force that drives your practice becomes. Like a river, he said, and I nodded. Rivers have long been a touchstone for my desire to drop into the flow of my true nature, my work.

Books I’ve read and loved recently:

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. This parable interrogates our relation to work and accomplishment and how it relates to our feelings of self-worth. It tells the story of a tea monk and a robot in a future time after the age of factories, when the robots have all gone out into the wild. It’s otherworldly. Among many great moments, my favorite was when the tea robot finally goes out into the world having learned their craft and has become a master of plants and ambiance, truly settled into their healing art. Look for it if you read the book. It’s what happens when we Make Time.

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino. So, I bought this book on a birthday shopping trip to Powell’s for a few reasons: a gorgeous purple (favorite color) cover, a character around my age who is really an alien, and the back cover blurbs. What made the alien premise alluring? I had a mother-in-law who once insisted that her son and I (and consequently our son) were 1974 star children. (It’s a whole thing.) The book did not disappoint when I finally got around to reading it four months later. The story covers Adina’s life from birth to 40. The structure of the narrative is unusual yet works well. It feels something like peering over the narrator’s shoulder while they flip through a photo album and tell talk-story the pictures that matter most. Adina is four when her mother fishes a fax machine out of the trash. Having nowhere else to put it, she chooses a shelf in Adina’s room. That’s when Adina begins sending (and receiving!) messages to her superiors on her home planet.

I also work as a writing coach and love helping writers gain confidence, set goals, and develop their work. For more information on coaching, email me at eatyourwords.lizshine@gmail.com.