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 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 genderqueer bisexual 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 an oppressed 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. Helped to distribute the Call for Proposals for the next Mennonite/s Writing Conference (for which I am once again on the planning committee).
3. Submitted sixteen poems to Modern Haiku and had two accepted.
4. Submitted fifteen poems to Acorn and had one accepted.
5. Submitted eight poems to Frogpond.
6. Had my memoir manuscript rejected by a publisher.
7. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies.
8. Submitted my memoir manuscript to another publisher.
Daniel Shank Cruz 
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