Taking My Own Advice

Have sent in my Bridport entries five weeks before the closing date!!!

I sent two poems NINE weeks early

Have had a crack at Yeovil's "Opening to a Novel" Comp and basically sent something to any comp with a prize of £150 or more.

I've started subbing poems (but I don't feel lucky) but if I don't sub I'll never know...



The point is, you have a hit rate, 1 in 3 or 1 in 5, even 1 in 10

So if it's a horrible 1/10, sub ten times!

Do that every week and you will have a hit a week.


My personal psychology seems to allow for a hit rate of 1 in 3. I can live with 1 in 4 but anything much worse and I find myself banging out a few flashes to slightly lower targets "just to cheer myself up"

But if I score 1 in 3 this year I'll have about 80 hits (work it out)

Someone said in BC, "You're hot this month AK"

But I'm not. I was hot TWO MONTHS ago when I managed 65 subs.


Art is wonderful. I like to think that sometimes I manage it.

But underpinning art is solid craft, basic rules, and fucking hard work.

And when it's written, re-written, polished, GET IT OUT THERE.

You shouldn't have anything merely "languishing" on you hard disk. Put it to work!

Alex