The Seeds I've Planted
It’s a rainy Saturday in early May, and I’m in my living room, alone, listening to a Sharon Van Etten record. I take a deep breath. It’s been a very busy season for me. Outside, everything is lush, flowering, and bright green. The azaleas are spectacular right now.
In early February, I wrapped up my year-long Poetry/Hybrid manuscript workshop with the amazing Carolyn Zaikowski, through the Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop. It was a year of ups and downs, ebbs and flows, but at the end of it, I had something. I had a manuscript.
We had an end of year reading that you can watch, my reading begins at minute 32:00 and lasts for a little over four minutes. I read from the first chapter of my hybrid memoir, called THIS: A Dreamoir. Thanks to Carolyn, and Joy Baglio for a wonderful year, as well as the other writers in the workshop!
It seems like everything I planted earlier in the year, writing-wise, is coming to fruition as well. In February, I applied for the Summer 2022 Tin House Workshop. I sent out some other writing during that time as well. I even submitted my full manuscript to a couple different calls for manuscripts that sounded like a good fit for my work. Since then, I’ve been in a holding pattern. Waiting and waiting for responses, rejections, to roll in. I realized that having submitted my manuscript, I had essentially finished the work I’ve been doing since Fall 2001. Over twenty years of piecing together a mosaic of fragments to create something whole. I feel like there’s still work to be done on it, but when is anything really finished? I could go on and work on it for another twenty years, and still not feel like it’s ready.
I celebrated the submission of my manuscript, but immediately felt a sense of loss, purposelessness, and even fear. What do I do now? What if it gets picked up, published, and people actually read it? My anxiety levels shot up just thinking about it. What if it’s just not good? What if it is good, and my soft underbelly is exposed to the world, my soul laid bare?
Then, late Friday afternoon on April 8th, I got an acceptance email from Tin House. I was, and still am, stunned. I had no expectation of being selected for the workshop, and now I’m making plans to fly to Portland, Oregon in July. The other day, I submitted part of chapter three to see if I can get a mentorship in addition to the workshop. I’m supposed to hear back by May 20th.
I hate waiting. I hate being in limbo. I hate seeing the dark blue “Received” stagnating in my Submittable queue for months on end. The “In Progress” work bring me a new kind of anxiety. I refresh the app more times a day, an hour, than I care to share. It’s an obsession. So far, my track record on Submittable is pretty sad. Most everything has been declined over the years, except for my one flash essay published in Under the Gum Tree’s Winter 2022 issue. I’m thrilled to have been published at all, given the crowded field of phenomenal writers I encounter daily on Lit Twitter.
My acceptance into the Tin House Workshop is a huge turning point for me. I will be meeting with agents, publishers, established writers of all backgrounds, and what will undoubtably be a cohort of amazing individuals, and hopefully that manuscript mentorship I applied for. My manuscript is still heavily under consideration by two small presses, and I’ll be hearing back about those by the end of the month.
What will emerge from the ground from the seeds I’ve planted? Today, it’s a rather chilly 52 degrees outside. I don’t have an actual green thumb, and my list of publications thus far is minimal. Will an orchid sprout, delicate and hard to keep alive, or will something hardier sprout and grow? I don’t know the answer, but I hope it will be beautiful. If anything, I’ve learned that nothing will grow if you don’t plant any seeds. I hope I can keep my dream alive, regardless of the outcomes. I hope all this rain I’ve experienced in my life produces something living and breathing and enduring. I hope the sun comes out soon.
What have you been planting? What are you hoping to grow and see flourish in your life? Whatever it is, I hope you see it blossom soon.