Just keep submitting!

After the summer semester gets out, and I am left in the hot, sticky afterbirth which is August in South Florida, I engage in what I like to call the English Professor's Frantic/Zen Cycle: sleep, write, eat, wine, read, and submit, submit, submit. The last three steps can be sprinkled in wherever you see fit. Although, I find nesting them in before, in the middle, and after eating and wine works best. The reason being every time I hit that submit button on Submittable or the send button on AOL all I feel is immediate Friday the 13th, oh no, the teens are having sex in the woods level anxiety. I guess I should nut up, after so many years of experiencing rejection, but I still can hear the homicidal whispers of Mrs. Voorhees over the mouse pad. I find muffins and merlot to be a comfort in this unhappy little horror skit that happens every time the sun slips into that frightening and final puff and pass moment of summer. I put various bodily systems into fruity traction because I can't imagine looking at my creative writing students in the fall and telling them to submit if I can't do it myself. It is for them and maybe the ghost of a younger me sitting in the back of the class doodling what her characters would look like if they were sitting right next to her and smoking a mentholated cigarette. Mostly, for them though. We are in it together. I click for Jocelyn's love of formal poetry, Danielle's talent for using 2nd person POV, Abigail's mastery of plot, Alexa's humor, Ja' Ron's twisted horror, Kailyn's love affair with prose poetry, and Trevon's mind blowing playwriting skills. I click for them. Always. Everyday when it hits the triple digits outside in Satan's ass crack, I am steaming forward for them. I must remember that.

And, yes, I still have my AOL account. Nostalgia goes good with merlot.