The road to happiness

On X/Twitter this week, lots of people have been reporting the number of rejections they've received for submissions to poetry magazines.

I am pleased to report that I have had 0 rejections this week. That is because I do not currently have any submissions in.

And it would appear that even if you get a poetry collection published, the chances are you won't sell many copies (30-60, but definitely under 100).

I am therefore also feeling pretty pleased because my self-published genre-defying poetry/words/photograph book sold 87 copies, back in 2019/20. (I gave away the rest of the 100 print run to friends and family.)

So, while not submitting or getting published, I have, as I said I would, spent my time recently exploring the many online poetry resources. There are so many, I could spend my entire life doing just that, if inconvenient chores like shopping, cooking, cleaning, repairing my collapsing home, etc didn't get in the way.

This exploration has left me both inspired and overwhelmed. My mind keeps darting off in different directions and won't settle on any one. I have, however, drafted quite a few new poems, and even tweeted one or two. They have received a positive response. And I'm pretty chuffed about that too. 

The road to happiness is clear.