Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Yesterday I finished this draft of Bright Angel. It felt so absolutely good. There are just a few bigger things I want to think about over the next few days. Then I will go back and put them in, or take them out, or brighten them up. Other than that, I'm good to go. Next step? The fella will do a grammar, punctuation and fact check on it. He's not allowed to discuss the plot or anything literary like. I've learned my lesson over the years. He doesn't like fiction unless it is either completely up there in the stratosphere (he's the only person I know who has read Moby Dick twice. And Finnegan's Wake) or spy novels. So...he is just going to copy-edit.

Today is a glorious day, the gal and I have gone to second beach and now I'm back. Today I'm looking at which three finished poems to send out. I want to get them off tomorrow - so I need to choose three and also decide where to send them. I have a little list of Canadian literary mags and generally stick to that. I created a system - a nice big wall chart - that said where each one was and comments back and so forth. Gone! I think I've heard back from all of them and I have a record on line who I sent to as well. Will have to start another system. I think a little book would be nice - two pages per poem and then just tiny notes about where and what happened.

I'm also thinking about the next step for my Labrador project. hmm... it is still eluding me. A memoir-ish poem-ish thing? A straight memoir built on my poems as reminders of what I was up to? A poetry manuscript? Self-publish with photos? And so on. I'm not stressing too much as I will have 5 days, a mentor, and a small crowd of writers to bounce ideas off of in October.

Here's a photo or two of the beach last night...we took Bella out for stick throwing in the glory.