Week in Review Omnibus

This post is a double-whammy, in which I will report recent progress on my latest writing goals, and announce the event from the week just past that I'm celebrating. First off, let's glance back at the goal I stated for myself at the beginning of February, and see how close to the target my aim carried me.

At the blog entitled The Five-Year Project, where author Misha Gericke recounts her publishing trials and triumphs, she also graciously hosts a monthly meme designed to encourage other aspirants, despairing or victorious. We announce our current ambition on the sign-up list for "Do You Have Goals?," and report back on our struggles to attain it. I listed for myself, "Get my first poetry chapbook published," and while that hasn't occurred yet, the first major hurdle is crossed, because I actually did finish writing it this month. The final count was 40 poems covering a total of 45 pages, including dedication page and similar materials. Sending it out to publishers is the next step, and I am currently awaiting the beginning of March and the arrival of my small monthly living stipend, out of which I will painfully scratch the $18 reading fee to submit the manuscript to Omnidawn Press' 2014 Chapbook Poetry Contest. Updates will be flying your way as events unfold, I assure you.

The other steps I have taken toward getting published may seem less obviously connected to that dream, but are a very necessary part of it, and constitute my celebration for the week. Thanks to the incredible generosity of a very dear friend, I once again have a roof over my head for the foreseeable future. I am still homeless, still sleeping in a friend's basement and therefore in more precarious circumstances than would allow me to be reunited with my daughter as yet, but she continues safe and happy with her grandparents, and I have a bit more stability in which to write, publish, and diligently seek permanent housing that will bring us back together. All of which I did full tilt this week; I am on a waiting list for subsidized rental housing, and I wrote roughly 10,000 words on a new prose manuscript (which muse has taken up where the muse of poetry has currently left off). As a fellow creative type advised me to recently, I will keep going until I succeed or die trying.