Old Times, New Plans, Decisions

So, I've been keeping this blog, more or less up to date, for a year and a half. For all this time I didn't try too much to step out or build a readership. I just wrote for myself and for anyone who wanted to read it. I've been doing the same outside the blog, too.

That is why I've gathered a lot of poems and a bunch of unfinished or unpolished fiction pieces both in English and Romanian - my native language. Because I've been writing for more than 10 years. I haven't thought much about publishing until about a year ago - I've dreamt about it for a long time but didn't really consider it. But when you have about 5 notebooks of handwritten poems you want to type to store on digital support it kind of makes you think about it.

I've sent some of my poems (not very consistent) to different magazines in Romania and the U.S. simultaneously. My Romanian poems got rejected, my English ones were published.I was disappointed by the rejection received in my own country, which only enhanced my surprise and happiness when those sent to U.S. magazines were accepted. I was thrilled when they asked for my permission to reprint them in yearly anthologies. I don't think one can write better in a foreign language than in maternal one, but I've stopped questioning Romanian publishing a while ago.

That made me think about publishing and documenting the process. I've done that for the last year or so and I've tried to learn as much as I could. but the best way to learn is by practicing. So I've read, I've followed tendencies and I stood on the side lines until I considered I was ready.

In the last three months I've been choosing, editing, arranging and reading and re-reading some of the poems I want to publish. I won't even try to publish to Romania - the process is painful and somehow vitiated.

I'm aiming for U.S., I'm going for self-publishing. And I'm going to start with poetry. I don't know how much people really read poetry today. I think not enough. I don't think I'm the one to solve that problem - sure, I encourage people to read poetry - but I want to fulfill my dream of publishing my poems. Not for fame or for money. Just for the sake of sharing them with the rest of the world.

More than a year ago I've started publishing poetry on my blog regularly mostly because a friend asked me if my life model was Emily Dickinson. I did get the point and the sarcasm in his remark. That is why I've typed my poems, started publishing them on the blog and now want them published.
I mean, I'm still young and have years ahead to publish, but what better time than the present?

I've read about self-publishing, I've learned about the process, I know the theoretical part, but I'm guessing that actually publishing is a little more difficult than it sounds when told about. I didn't actually find many poets blogs or testimonials documenting their experience in self-publishing. Even more so, foreign poets self-publishing.

It doesn't matter. I'll do it anyway. It doesn't cost me a thing, but it fulfills a long time dream.

This post is only published so I don't get to change my mind, to make me stick to my plan.
Don't laugh, I need to go public, otherwise I won't do it soon.