The January Weird Circular

Author

Holly Lyn Walrath
January 10, 2023

This month's Weird Circular is live with submission ideas, prompts, and more!

Welcome to the Weird Circular

Dear Weirdos,

Happy New Year! I've been thinking a lot about the below quote from poet Mary Ruefle. One thing I used to worry about as a writer was whether I was wasting my time. I wanted to skip the hard work and get to success. As one of my favorite singer-songwriters, David Ramirez wrote about music: "...the truth is, it's all a lie. If you're just wishing, you ain't pitching strikes. Put in the work. Put in the time." 

The reality is any creative process takes tons of time wasted. But if you allow yourself to think of it as wasted because you: 

  • Didn't finish the story

  • Didn't publish the poem

  • Didn't get the essay critiqued

  • Didn't land the agent 

  • Didn't win the contest

Then you need a change in how you look at your process. Every failure in writing is a stepping stone to being a better writer. Every story you couldn't figure out how to end, every poem you couldn't find a home for, etc. Like anything we do as humans, we don't start out as experts. We have to flounder. 

But more than that, we have to let our brains relax and waste time. Time spent thinking about writing, time spent dreaming, time spent imagining. It is truly not wasted because you are teaching your brain to tap into the creative self. And that self matters. It deserves your time, because writing is what you love. 

Your corporeal host,

Holly 

“You are a walking paradigm of the human condition—you think you know more about the universe than you actually do.”“You are congenitally unable to do anything profitable.”These astute remarks were made to me by someone who knows me well. And I am thankful for them, for they encourage me in ways he could not imagine and did not intend.John Ashbery, in an interview in the Poetry Miscellany, talks about wasting time: “I waste a lot of time. That’s part of the [creative process]....The problem is, you can’t really use this wasted time. You have to have it wasted. Poetry disequips you for the requirements of life. You can’t use your time.”In other words, wasted time cannot be filled, or changed into another habit; it is a necessary void of fomentation. And I am wasting your time, and I am aware that I am wasting it; how could it be otherwise? Many others have spoken about this.Tess Gallagher: “I sit in the motel room, a place of much passage and no record, and feel I have made an important assault on the Great Nothing.”Gertrude Stein: “It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”Mary Oppen: “When Heidegger speaks of boredom he allies it very closely with that moment of awe in which one’s mind begins to reach beyond. And that is a poetic moment, a moment in which a poem might well have been written.”The only purpose of this lecture, this letter, my only intent, goal, object, desire, is to waste time. For there is so little time to waste during a life, what little there is being so precious, that we must waste it, in whatever way we come to waste it, with all our heart."From Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle

News From Your Corporeal Host

Submission Calls

Upcoming Submission Windows:

January

  • Dark Matter Magazine, deadilne 1/15: Short Fiction (1k-5k words). Pays .08/word. Also open for the Monster Lairs anthology until 2/5.

  • Improbable Press, Anna Karenina Isn't Dead Anthology, deadline 1/31: Short fiction that retells a classic woman in literature's story (up to 5k words). Pays $.04/word. 

February

  • Luna Station Quarterly, deadline 2/15: Speculative fiction by women (500-7000 words) Pays $5/story

  • Planet Scumm, deadline 2/21: Short stories or flash fiction (up to 5,000 words). Pays $.06/word. 

Need more submission ideas? Check the

newest markets, Duotrope's

,

, SFPA's

, Moksha's

or Literary Mama's

.

My large-scale erasure will be ON SALE at the Houston

1/22! Come say hi!

Coming in 2023: My new poetry collection from Aqueduct Press!

I'm working on an erasure poetry series where I make a black out poem of the Encyclopedia! You can follow along on

or on

. 

I'm teaching a

starting 2/6 on the topic of small poems! From haiku to nonets (a nine line poem), short poems are having a moment. Some of the bestselling poets of today write small poems. In this workshop, we’ll explore and compose tiny poems that are under 15 lines. Learn how to write the shortest of poems such as the Rondeau (a poem of fifteen lines with two rhymes throughout) or the humble sonnet.

We’ll discuss techniques for crafting powerful images and details in very few words. Whether you’re planning a chapbook or poetic sequence, or just want to explore shorter forms, this workshop will help you generate new powerful tiny poems.

YOU SHOULD BE WRITING

Exercise

: This is from my

starting 2/6. Find a small piece of paper. Maybe it's the back of an envelope or a post-it note. Write a poem that fits on that piece of paper. 

Bonus Round

: Bonus points if it's a torn piece of paper! For the ultimate tiny poem challenge, try writing one fragment poem per day for a month. How does this change your view on poetry? Does writing in literally a small space change how you write?

Exercise: Consider the humble diorama. Maybe you made one in school: A shoe box with figurines in it, or some moss and rocks you found outside your house. Write a story, poem, or essay that uses a miniature scene. Describe the scene as if there is an objective third party observer.  

Bonus Round: Expand the scene and zoom out. What is the bigger story being told? What are the stakes on a world-level?

Exercise: Write a story or poem set in a contained space. A room, a house, a closet, the trunk of a car. Describe the space in detail.  

Bonus Round:

 Insert an emotion into the scene: Anger, jealousy, fear, anxiety, gratitude, exhaustion, or any emotion that seems to fit your idea. 

Editing tip of the month: Make a plan for your editing this year. Sit down and spend 5 minutes journaling about what you want to accomplish in your revisions. How can you make space for your writing? Why DO you write? What are your dreams for the new year?

Inspiration from the Ether

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