20190114.0430

As I write this, I have a piece out under review at what is becoming a notable venue. I do not yet know its status, so I am not going to be more explicit about where the piece, if accepted, will be placed, although those close to me (which will include many who read this entry into this webspace) already know--largely because I have a big mouth that seems rarely to shut. Still, having the piece out and thinking about it, as well as about the things I've written for release on the days leading up to the present piece's publication, does bring to mind one of the challenges I face in making the jump from writing for my own edification to writing under my own name for money. (I've gotten paid for freelance writing in the past, but that has been done under different circumstances than trying to get something larger published, as if I were a "real" author or a "real" poet.) Because it should be clear I've not done much of that; indeed, my non-scholarly publications are few and unremunerated. Not that my scholarly ones are many and lucrative...
Having the piece under review, having it subject to the tastes and decisions of others, is not an easy thing for me. Given that I tend to view writing as, in many respects, an outpouring of myself, I tend to bristle at the comments many others would make about it. (My wife, who reads much of what I write before I send it out to more formal publication venues, is an exception, of course, but that is because I know her well and know that she values me as me. She must, or she'd not be my wife; I'm neither attractive enough nor rich enough to prompt allegiance despite non-esteem.) It is a commonplace, I know; I have read the attestations of many to that end, that they bleed in black upon the page, and that comments about the words recorded are taken as comments about those who write them. I am not claiming any special status, but there is some strange comfort in being able to align with the usual.
The thing is, I ought to be past that with my own writing at this point. I do have articles out under my name. I pushed through a master's thesis and a doctoral dissertation. I do have other publications out, entirely. It should be business as usual that I get reviewed, and I should be at a point in my life and writing that I can accept comments about my work as being about the work and not the worker. Yet I am not, as I know many whose work I read and comment upon are not. I continue to strive to keep that knowledge in minds as I make comments, trying to balance how the work can be improved with not attacking the one who will have to do that work. It is an area in which I still need to improve quite a bit, I am certain; most areas of my life are such. But that does not mean I should not be trying to do so.