Shazam! Last week I stuck so many postage stamps onto envelopes, I could have mailed my house to Wyoming. And I probably did. Inside those envelopes were hundreds of pages . . . thousands of carefully-crafted words that I hope editors will pine after and, eventually, receive with thanks, and, in return, send me a nice check (or at least some contributors copies).
This was a big pile: one of the largest I have ever manufactured. I have been spending the summer evenings addressing these envelopes, double-checking my list of editors, crafting the perfect cover letter, making stamp runs to the post office and purchasing one dollar stamps in great profusion and going without donuts so I can pay for the mailing.
My wife wonders where our bank account went.
It's in the stamps. The stamps are on the envelopes. The envelopes contain the writing. The writing contains my life. My life contains . . . well, lots of insane hopes and dreams and the notion that I might make enough from these envelopes to write large checks to Ball State and IU and that I might be able to eat again and take nourishment.
September is the month for writers. It is when university presses open their doors again, when literary journals are open to new submissions, when hope springs eternal on the keyboard.
This was a big pile.
I just hope I don't step in it.
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