Category Archives: patience

Fan Bases, Humility, and Publication Success

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Up until about a week ago, 2026 felt like an off-year for writing. I’d done my homework: 40 poetry and 8 Fiction/Essay submissions so far. However, nearly all of it, except for a very small smattering, was coming back with a no.

This is not a complaint or a boo-hoo moment, and, as I’ve counseled others, I didn’t take it personally. But I’d been used to a slightly higher (10-12%) batting average than what I’d been getting. True, I might have been skewing my submission strategy to a higher number of “reach journals” from which I’d be more likely to get rejected, but I still always made sure to include many others that seemed in my ballpark.

Until this past week, where three journals accepted seven poems.

It’s important to recognize that what happened this week didn’t start this week. Two of the journals that accepted my work were places I’d published before, and though I don’t know either of these editors personally, I was touched that they each went out of their way to personally solicit a submission from me. There’s little more gratifying to get an email out of the blue that says, Hey Dina, we haven’t heard from you in a while. Our next theme is __________ and we would love you to submit your work. I’m paraphrasing the wording, but it’s the implication, rather than the words, that matters. Your work touched me. It was memorable and I’d like to see more of it. And share it with others.

Wow! Do I really have a fan base? Part of me feels uncomfortable even thinking such a thought. I tend to bristle in spaces where writers and other creatives get too blatantly self-promotional. I know there’s a certain amount of PR that has to be done, but I can usually discern when people are a little too connected to their egos, rather than seeing themselves as merely a conduit for the work they’re doing. I know that is a highly judgmental statement, and I’ll probably need to unpack it–and apologize to anyone I might have offended. But I will continue to stand firmly in an aura of humility, rather than arrogance, though hopefully maintaining enough balance not to fall into self-effacement, as one Jewish spiritual practice, the Mussar, teaches.

And taking that significant step away from self-effacement, I’m glad to take this moment to affirm that it’s ok–more than ok–to acknowledge that somewhere there are people out there who love my work.

Retrieved from Open Access: grfpublishers.org

Which is why I do all these submissions. And write this blog. Because I want to expand my reach beyond the boundaries of my communities to others in the ether, whom I hope will be touched in some small or large way by my words and the messages behind them. Ultimately, what I want is connection, whether it’s through my words or (in the cases of writers/artists/musicians, etc. of whom I’d call myself “a fan”) theirs.

Note: this is not a quick process. It has taken years, and many, many rejections and disappointments to cultivate these relationships. Likely there are editors out there who will love your work once they become aware of it, but the amount of time this takes will try your patience and fortitude. However, it is a great way to feel connected–and to get your words out there to a wider audience. It’s also been personally gratifying to friend some of these editors on social media and get to know just a little bit about them as people, as well as to follow journals I like and get a deeper sense of why these editors have devoted so much time to the unpaid labor of love of spreading words into the universe.

So thanks to Katherine McDaniel at Synkroniciti, Michael Broder at Second Coming, Abby Murray at Collateral, Elizabeth MacDuffie at Meat for Tea, Nadia Arrioli at Thimble, Emily Perkovich at Querencia Press, Matthew Krajniak at Consequence, Hayley Haugen at Sheila-Na-Gig, Lee Desrosiers at  Wordpeace and the Naugutuck River Review, Sally Zaino at Earthshine, and many others that I’m missing here for your dedication to forging connections between writers–and readers.

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COVID in Cape Town

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Two days into my South Africa trip, I started getting cold symptoms. I tested for COVID and was relieved to be negative, so I went on a safari and for a walk with rifle-carrying naturalists in the wild bush, chalking up the fatigue I was feeling to two consecutive red eye flights followed by the eight hour bus ride to Kruger National Park. A few days later, when we arrived in Cape Town, my husband was also coughing and sneezing. Our symptoms felt like a typical cold, but just to make sure, we both tested again. BINGO! For both of us, a flaming red line.

All our plans for Cape Town were now upended. We had hoped to hike on Table Mountain, visit Robben Island–where Mandela spent 25 years in prison–see the penguin colony and the Cape of Good Hope. We also were very much looking forward to observing a rehearsal of a youth choir run by a friend of my younger child’s. And I’d been hoping to spend many evenings at venues that offered the lush South African a capella music I love so much.

But now, we had to totally shift gears. Even though there are no isolation protocols in South Africa, we were determined to keep others safe. While we were glad not to be quarantined to our hotel room, since other than mild congestion, both of us felt pretty well, we didn’t want to do anything that might inadvertently infect others. So, in the heat, we put on our masks and found places we could walk to from our hotel. We rented bikes and rode along the beach, and when we were done, we sanitized the handlebars with hand-wipes. It felt like 2020 all over again, except that we were the ones everyone was supposed to be afraid of.

Meanwhile, we’re hanging onto the fantasy that perhaps we’ll test negative before we have to leave and we can do some of the things we wanted to do. It’s kind of the way I feel sometimes when I let my hopes get the better of me when I’m starting a writing project. Perhaps this will be the breakthrough book–the one that will everyone will read and love, or the poem published in the hot-shot journal. But perhaps not. When I tested again yesterday, that extra line was still flaming positive. It’s fine to dream, but even more important is to deal with what life gives you and make it work. A writing project, like a vacation, will be what it will. Despite all my leanings toward perfectionism, I feel grateful for each snippet the muse throws my way, just as I feel grateful to the bi-valent vaccine, for making my experience of this illness that we’ve feared for so long feel like not a big deal.

So, probably no music for me, this trip–other than listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo on YouTube. How long before that red line disappears? Who knows? I’ll just have to be patient, put on my mask and be happy enough to sit on an uncrowded beach and watch the sunset.

 

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Piano Patience

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As promised in the last post, more about patience–this time, on the music front. When I first came back to piano two years ago, I would constantly beat myself up mentally for not being able to play a piece well after a couple of days of practicing. Some people can fake their way through and play pretty decently just by sight-reading, but I’ve never been one of those people. I have to practice the jumps on the keyboard incessantly before I can be sure that my fingers will land in the right places. And even then, it’s never a sure thing.

What changed for me was engaging in the same process I used in writing. I’d learn a piece to the best of my ability at the current moment, then put it aside for a few weeks or months. When I came back to it, there was often a day or two where I had to ease the notes back under my fingers, but suddenly it was there, and I wasn’t thinking about the notes anymore. Instead I was thinking about the important things that differentiate “cookbook playing” from a more authentic and personal musical expression–nuance, dynamics, shading. As my fingers were finally able to fall comfortably on the notes, I had more slack to consider different ways to express the rise and fall of each phrase. Sometimes, especially with some of the technically harder pieces I’m learning, I still came across passages I couldn’t play, but I’d try as best I could to shut off the negative voices and drill some more before putting the piece away again for more simmering.

One of the first pieces I visited on my journey back to piano was Mendelssohn’s Venetian Boat Song #2. This is a fairly easy piece that I first learned somewhere between fourth and sixth grade, but I still had to struggle with all the left hand jumps and the right hand trills. And even when I got the notes down again, I could never count on a foolproof, mistake-free rendition. But recently, especially as my post-collarbone fracture arm still can’t hack too much hard practicing,  I’ve pulled it out again after the third or fourth simmer, and voilà, my hands are sailing through and I can just lose myself in the bobbling waves of the canal.

 

 

My recovery from the collarbone injury has also taught me a lot about patience. I generally have about 15 good practice minutes under my belt before my arms start to ache, which has meant that learning Chopin’s Nocturne No. 19 in E Minor, a new piece I love and have never played before is taking forever. I can practice one or two phrases at a time, and then I’m tired. And the next day when I go back to the I phrases I thought I learned, I realize they’re still far from smooth. But slowly, this, too, will change. After all, a month ago, I couldn’t even raise my left arm to the height of the piano bench. I’m not one for aphorisms, but whoever said patience was a virtue knows something I’m still learning.

 

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