(8am) My self-confidence must have improved. (There was a time when the rejection letter I got from that publisher would have crushed me; but it hardly phased me at all. (Neat.) (My writing doesn't fit accepted patterns and lots of people will react like he did, but I think that eventually I will find a publisher.)-(My poems are simplistic; but I don’t think is bad. (There might actually be a wider audience for them than for a lot of poetry.)-(Maybe part of why poetry is so little read in this country is that it's written for the cultural elite?))) (That professor commented that they deal too directly with emotions rather than hiding them in allusion and such, but I think a lot of people like them laid out on the table. (The most popular form of poetry in this country is song lyrics, and that is what they usually do.)) (Maybe one difference between a lot of poets and me is that they put a lot of conscious thought into writing where mine comes mostly from the unconscious mind? (That is especially true of the "Feelings" series. (Back then I wrote a whole poem within a couple minutes, as it appeared in my conscious mind.)-(Now I usually don't write a whole poem at once, and there is more conscious involvement. (As a result they are longer and a little more complex.)))) (Another difference I have noticed from the Paw days is that I stick poems away in my pocket rather than leaving them out on the bar after I write them. (And, since I don't finish them there, I don't make copies and give them to people. (I met a lot of people that way; but, if my goals are to begin opening myself to love, not depressing people, and communicating more positively, I think it's best to not reveal that part of myself right away. (Learn some better ways to meet people!)))) (Ross commented that I should write "longer lines" in my poetry. (That is a more conventional format; but the format I use is what appears in my mind, and it feels right. (And, I noticed something that surprised me, when I edited "Feelings". (Because of that format, there are several ways to read each poem; and there seem to be some interesting sub-messages that it brings out. (e.g., just reading the first word of each line.)-(e.g., only reading the indented lines.) (Sometimes the sub-messages are reinforce the major message of the poem, and sometimes they state the antithesis.))))
(10am) When I get some stamps, I think I will try Black Sparrow Press next. (They did all the books by Bukowski that I read.) (They are in Santa Barbara and I asked Carrie if she would be interested in being my agent and contacting them. (She is good at sales.) (She didn't comment, so I will go ahead and do it myself.))
One way I keep myself happy at work is to figure out the informal communication channels there and then play around with them. (Tis a habit I got into when I was into auditing. (That is a really helpful tool in finding one’s way through a business one isn’t familiar with.)) (e.g., last winter one of the biggest problems I found at the County was that communications had broken down. (e.g., two people who needed to talk with each other regularly, to get their work done, weren't talking at all. When one needed to talk to the other they would go to a third party who served as their messenger in delivering the information. (What a pain.)-(Not only were those people not getting their work done well, but their messenger wasn't getting his job done well.) (I solved it partially. (That area of the building shared a coffeepot, so I moved it into the office of one of the two people whom weren't talking. Now they are in the same space when the other gets coffee and they started bs'ing a little, and finally got to where they talk when their work requires it. (They still didn't like each other much, but at least they started communicating.))))) (Tis things like that that I miss most while I am unemployed. (Work is a big part of my social life, and I am ready for it to return.))