August 14, 2009

Weird exhaustion, but like the day itself, when I look out on the heavy, damp grayness of it all.

Seated amid a (virtual) heap of completed poems, stories, novels, plays, that have not been submitted anywhere, or grossly under-submitted. I work two hundred days on new material for every day I spend selling that material, and though I would like to present that as purity, on that one day it is resentment and frustration. Tonight I’ve tried to make inroads on the heap, but each gesture is like swimming in lead, or moving at all through this thick, cement-colored, torrid atmosphere. I have to look out on the marigolds to remind me this is the world. I know one is supposed to have an agent for this, but are there agents who are actually beneficial? I have had agents, but never one who was beneficial, never one who associated with anything which actually sold, precious few who were. . . let’s be honest, sane. Like a runner with a bad finish, or a swimmer with a lousy butterfly, or a singer with iffy high notes, I fall short as a writer on this issue of marketing, and my unhelpful response to this shortcoming is fury.