Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of our times, and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I will include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones.
I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a queer disabled Latinx writer because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of a marginalized group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.
The list is basically in chronological order.
1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.
2. Had my last two MFA workshops and submitted my thesis.
3. Had the eight poems I submitted to Frogpond last month rejected.
4. Got my most recent royalty statement for Queering Mennonite Literature. I earned $16.69 over the past half year. #PublishingPaidMe
5. Submitted five poems to the 2023 Haiku Society of America members’ anthology and heard back from the editor about which one they will include (everyone who submits has one selected).
6. Had an essay abstract I submitted to a collection rejected.
7. Had my memoir rejected by a contest.
8. Had a review of Field Language: The Painting and Poetry of Warren and Jane Rohrer, edited by Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Christopher Reed, and Joyce Henri Robinson published in Religion & Literature.
Daniel Shank Cruz 