Where I am, it’s autumn. It’s been warm, it’s been humid, it’s been stormy, there have been fires, and flash floods, cooler nights, light breezes, traffic, and high UV. And, just like that March is virtually over.

I’ve been working on new writing. I’m never sure what new writing will turn into, it could be a poem or two, or a story, or an essay, or a blog post, or it may fizzle into nothing much, only to scatter into parts that become tiny potential particles of undetermined new things. At the moment, words are seeds of possibility that could grow into alternate futures, spinning in infinity. And of course if something does become a poem, it doesn’t rule out becoming a prose poem, and if something is a flash piece, I could rip it apart for the poetry after a while. It depends where I think it can fit and what journals want.

Speaking of journals and submissions, it feels like slow going. It doesn’t help that the online submission database I use stopped working, and while it’s back up now, I decided I need an actual back up if the program proper dies. This means copying over entries one at a time, because this current database doesn’t have a download function (sigh). It’s all part of the joy of writing.

People say the internet is forever, but things decay, and they take time and money to maintain, and often break down. Stories I had published online a decade or more ago are completely gone, not even the sites exist. Maybe this is a part of why archaeology still interests me: people digging up tiny traces of humanity, pieces of metal or clay and reading into them entire societies, peoples and their histories. These experts then create virtual museums to represent what might have been. Right now, I wonder how long until future archaeologists investigate what is left of these digital representations of ancient possibilities or whether there will be anything left at all. I ponder if any future expert can know if the virtual truly represented the actual, or even if it matters. If the only thing left is the facsimile, is it the thing it represents?

Oops. Big thoughts on a late night. As for me, a new short story will be published in April, unless the universe says otherwise.

The 2023 Writing Update

• Rejections: 22
• Pending: 25
• Accepted (3 carried over from 2022): 5
• Published: 4