[in]complete #5: once in a lifetime

I could have travelled into the Smoke this afternoon, and stood in a room full of poetry publishers. Instead, I'm here, waiting for a phone call which may well dictate how the rest of my weekend will play out. On reflection, and with all the potentially stressful connotations the latter entails, I will cope with it better than the former, because of what that represents in my head. Sometimes, progress is not the Holy Grail you imagine it to be.

So many times in the last eight years I have sent work to people and been met with silence. There's not even a rejection email, simply the Void of Not Knowing until it gets to publication time for the person who won. This will absolutely end up as my version of Hell when I finally get there: piece after submission sent to people to read, to review, to respond to and instead of even the most basic acknowledgement there will be silence: a horrible yet wholly predictable nothing.

I crave the simplicity of conversation and interaction without judgement.

Mostly this week has been stress of a kind I can vaguely recall from far younger days; not bad, anything but, instead the tickle of anticipation and belief and excitement based on my own merits. There are spaces now where my professional ability has been given space to grow, and it has. The problem, and it still is one, remains the publication terror. How can I believe my work is making progress if other people don't see that as the case?

The answer, trusting myself, remains a struggle. This won't get any easier, but what can alter is my own outlook. Publication is not the be all and end all of existence. It is a step on a path that ultimately may never suit my aims, as they stand now. It is entirely possible my Final Form isn't even born yet, that all the ideas and dreams that have led to this point are now pulling me in a different direction... but mostly, when I'm tired, I lose belief in the process overall.

Right now I am, I accept, very tired indeed.

Things may be about to get very weird, or it could simply end up as another random Saturday. I dunno, that's why I need the phone call, but until it happens, there is no logic to follow or reasoning to adhere to. I simply wait, and actually it might not be a bad idea to go and have a nap, just in case. The publishing fair does not have particularly great memories associated with it anyway. I have dodged at least one bullet today. That can end up as the win regardless.

It is time for a kip and to wait and see if I have dodged another.