This may be the last post I make here...at least concerning my writing life. I'm just too damn depressed about writing to put forth the effort to write about writing.

First the good news. In the last week, I have had two poems accepted for publication. One is at Round (their online pub) for their upcoming issue on Fear. The poem is titled, appropriately enough, "Fear and Chaos." The other poem to be accepted is my sequence "Concurrences," at Lacryma. Both of these places look to be interesting for different reasons. I even got a small check from one. I am grateful to both for taking my work.

Have received rejections for about three of my stories in the past week or so, including one from Kenyon Review, a place I am starting to believe will never accept my work. I don't think they are bad for this, but I have just about lost hope of seeing my writing in places like this.

When I opened one letter of acceptance, I did not have the usual feeling of joy that comes with seeing that an editor not only likes my work enough to publish it, but deems it worthy of payment. Instead, my first thought was, "I may well be doing this the rest of my life." By "this," I mean writing little poems and stories that occasionally find a home and now and then receiving the payment a magazine or journal can afford for them. But books and at least enough money to actually suppliment my salary? I have less hope of this.

I don't blame editors. They accept what they accept and it is a damn hard job for those whose main reward is seeing what they like in print. I don't blame the "literary community" for not "appreciating" me or my writing. That I deserve, by virtue of my devotion to writing and efforts, some sort of world wide audience is bull. I don't necessarily blame a culture that wants less culture in general. I don't blame anyone. I'm just tired.

It does not help matters that this past weekend, I noticed that two publishing houses I have sent my book to (via their contests) have been written about, in no flattering way, at Foetry. So it is possible that I have sent some of my best writing with a money order to someone I don't know who may not actually give it a real chance. To be rejected, even because my work doesn't match an editor's personal tastes, is not bad; it is life. But even the sugggestion that I might not be given even a fair reading is hard to adjust to. And it is likely that this sort of editorship at some major publications is more common than most would let on.

I will keep writing....something. I can't give it up. But I am not likely to do so with much hope. Perhaps that might help. Many of the best things in my life have occurred as a result of "letting go." Maybe I need to see what about writing is worth holding on to and what just needs release.