A Collage for Spring

I came up with this image for the spring holidays (Passover, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, etc.)

The background is a shot of the snapdragons in our front yard from March 12. The top left moth is the Red-fringed Emerald Moth I'd photographed on March 14. The moth at bottom right is the Southern Emerald Moth I'd photographed on January 20.

This week has seen one short story written & submitted, another resubmitted, and a head cold trounced with a weekend of R&R....

In the space of a week (after spotting the call for submissions), I've drafted, several-times-tweaked, and submitted a story whose word count falls just about smack dab in the middle of the preferred length; and have done so well within the "early deadline" of the end of the month. Until now, I hadn't written anything for submission that was based on someone else's universe, so this is a first for me. At least it is for fiction -- I've written poems to meet contest specs, geared toward particular subject matter and/or poetic forms. And the playing I do in my free-writing group follows particular prompts, so that's probably given me some good prep. I should know in about three months whether the story gets a yea or nay, but in either case I've been patting myself on the back.

I'd found that call while looking for a place to resubmit a story that's been bounced back -- and thanks to wording supplied in the rejection I searched out specific markets that took vignettes. So I'll see how I do there.


Large view

I found this flowering crabapple on the Art Center campus. Thanks to The Kid for the ID!



I've continued taking photos of the Art Center renovation as it progresses. This is the first shot I've taken of what used to be our main art gallery. Luckily, I got this one in before the workers covered the windows with plywood:



More shots are up on my renovation photoset. While I was at it, I took a snippet from a shot of hanging cables and designed a little "renovation rug":



The cables, insulation, and wood in the pattern come from the upper left corner of this shot.

By the time Friday rolled around I was congested and fighting off a cold that had me sneezing through the weekend. I think I've sent it packing, and today got back to the gym for the first time in about a week.

I spent part of the weekend checking in at the Poets & Writers Speakeasy Forum. In a discussion on rejections I found this wonderful analogy by Jenn Brewer:

"I look for poetry when I walk. I saw this image -- a young, leafless tree in front of the flag at half mast in front of the old brick high school that has been the center of this community for generations. I put everything down on the sidewalk and started taking pictures -- several of them. I'll be lucky if ONE captures what I saw there. It's not the tree. Or the limp and lowered flag. Or the old school. It's all of them, what they say as a unit. I don't know (not having looked yet) if I got the framing right, if it's balanced, if the lighting is right, if the feeling of youth in despair comes through. But if I were to give up because one picture (or one batch of pictures -- or poems or stories, for that matter) doesn't convey what I see and feel effectively, then ... well, I guess that's my own fault, isn't it? I guess I just have to keep 'clicking.'"

Jenn also writes at her blog, Diamonds and Rust.

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