Last Day of Summer: Autumn Goals

This morning, I was all dressed and ready to go out on my run.  Then a rain storm swept through, which I assumed meant we were in for a morning of rain.  So, I settled in for a morning of writing.

Of course, it hasn't been a morning of rain.  But I still got some writing done--a poem!  A total gift, inspired by this post and this post on Dave Bonta's blog.  I wrote a poem that uses imagery of falling satellites and capital punishment and ends with this stanza:

"Let my death come as the unpacking
of a box of books,
old friends on a new shelf.
Let my death be as an apple
in the autumn, far from the tree,
but with new friends nestled
between the covers of crust,
a new home in warm pastry."

Today is the last day of summer, and tomorrow we enter the last quarter of the year.  Time to make some goals.  I revisted my 2011 writing goals which I wrote about here.  Many of those goals are still good ones:  a poem a week, that kind of thing.

But let me focus a bit more:

--I want to have my Fall mailing done by December 31.  Lots of packets to lots of journals.

--I want a strategy for submitting my book length manuscript, Ash Wednesday at the Trinity Test Site.  I have let most manuscript submission fall by the wayside during the past year.  I figured that I had a book coming out, and my focus should be on getting ready for that book and promoting that book.  Now it's time to return to other manuscripts.

--I want to re-order the manuscript that I've thought of as my spirituality poem manuscript.  I've written new poems that would fit, and I've gotten a glimpse of an interesting new possibility for other poems to include, which I wrote about here.  I'll focus on that possibility/task during my writer's retreat in November.

--I need to continue to promote my chapbook, I Stand Here Shredding Documents.  I need to arrange a few more readings and think about if there's anything else I should do.

--I've just begun to think about eBooks.  I'm ablaze with ideas, and it's time to think about whether or not they could work.

--It's also time to think about the fact that eBooks can do more than paper books.  We could have hyperlinks, photos, even video.  Hmmm.

--I'd like to take photographs that could work, should I put together an eBook of my manuscript Simple Things to Make Your Body Feel Good.

That list is more than enough for a three months.  Let's see what happens!