Writing Report: Month 1, 2016

The month of January has just zoomed by.  Every week seems to just zoom by, so I'm not surprised that the month, too, feels zippy.

Let me take a minute to check in on my writing goals.  I spent the morning preparing two submissions to possible agents, so I have that on the brain--I was motivated to actually send those queries out because my goal is to send out 3 queries to agents each month as I work towards getting my memoirish book of essays published.

I have done a good job of submitting other individual works to journals this month.  I've also done a good job of writing new work:  I finished one short story and started another, and I've written at least two poems each week.

I'm intrigued by where I find ideas for poems.  Yesterday, I sent a poem to the Via Negativa site because it was inspired by two poems that were posted earlier on the site.  If you go here, you can read the poem, which seems an interesting combination of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday themes.  You can also find links to the poems that inspired my poem.

I've also picked up my Jesus-in-the-world series again.  So far this month, I have sent Jesus off to work on political campaigns in advance of the Iowa Caucuses and off to Fashion Design school.  Jesus does not do so well at Fashion Design school.

Here we are, the week-end before the Iowa Caucuses, the week-end before Groundhog Day, the week-end before Candlemas, the feast day on Feb. 2 that marks the true end of Christmas in some Christian traditions (for more on that holiday, see this post on my theology blog).  In honor of the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, here's a stanza from one of this month's poems:


Jesus understands this fever dream,
the appeal of those outside the Establishment
who dream of establishing Empire.
The scars on his hands and side throb
slightly, as they always do when the weather turns.