Okay, I’m running with the hybrid manuscript idea. It’s all put together and proofread – and it reads smoother than either book did separately. I’ve sent out The Blues Handbook (that’s the title I settled on) to a contest. I’ll send it to two or three more in April, depending on money. Book contest submission fees are getting pricey. But that’s another rant for another day.
Where does that leave the orphaned poems, the ones that up until awhile ago were strong enough to be in a book but are now are just floating in limbo (and not the good kind of limbo, with a pole and reggae music)? Some of these have been published or won awards, so I can’t ignore their existence.
I identified three categories of these leftovers, and I have a fair amount of each group: approximately twelve toxic love/relationship poems, ten or eleven “what the hell’s wrong with humanity”/social commentary poems, and eighteen or so surreal poems. I’ll take those groupings, try to pen a few more poems that mesh with the categories, and get three chapbook manuscripts ready to submit by mid-summer.
This will work well with my writing schedule. I planned on writing poetry through April and May, and then focus on short fiction for the remainder of the year. On non-creative days or days when I don’t feel like laboring over prose, I’ll edit and refine the chapbooks.
But any idiot can come up with a plan. Now I have to execute.