I don’t know how to use these online spaces well. I’ve been struggling to keep up with my work and writing goals, and this space has suffered. I use it mostly to park things I look up while I’m writing—a place to store images/ideas/experiences.

I also struggle with the online writers community. I feel dull, precious and middle aged. My wit is undertuned and I ohave very little to say besides thank you or an expression of appreciation/agreement. Sometimes not even that since it feels syncophantic.

Think what I like about Miller, but he was at least willing to make choices. I’m mossy and shambling.

Can't there be something great in the sheer number of poets working today? Can it be like a fabulous bazaar, poems bunched and offered like flowers-- exotic sellers, startling colors?

It doesn't feel like that now. Diffusion. Too diffuse.

As though I walked into the drug store and saw 10,000 different brands of shampoo. So many options I don't feel delighted by the choice. Instead the suspicion all shampoo is the same. Too many choices, creating the feeling of sameness? How does that work?

Also something autistic about the circles of writers. Backs turned out to the readers, faces turned to each other.

Looking for a way to make a really joyful noise.

On business models for literary journals.

I just got an email from the local expat literary journal. They have rebranded themselves. Rather than shilling subscriptions to their journal, they want you to buy a membership in their writing community. For between 20-50 euros per year, you get one free copy of the journal, 35% off a subscription, a VIP invitation to their launch party, and reduced prices for their writing groups and workshops. The more you pay, the more reduced events you can attend.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (VIP invitation to their launch party? Seriously?)

They aren't the only ones taking this kind of initiative. Another journal that has been around for many years now regularly asks for payment for themed reading periods. They only have two periods per year where they accept unpaid submissions. Reading between the lines, the strong implication is your chances of acceptance are improved if you're willing to fork over the money.

The initiative of the first journal is certainly, on the surface, less pernicious than in the case of the second. But still, it begins to feel as though the journal only exists to hawk the workshops and their (paid) writing groups.

What's the purpose of a literary journal anyhow?

They certainly aren't enduring works of art in and of themselves. Even the most famous are swiftly forgotten. Some of the most influential had runs of no more than two or three years.

It seems to me that a literary journal is a way of facilitating a conversation about writing/art-- a conversation between writers, editors, and readers which finds form through the printed or online page. Writing groups certainly often grow up around a journal, but shouldn't that be an organic thing? Not a paid membership to some kind of writing club like fucking poetry girlscouts.

Pardon my language.

I get regular communication from these people. They never seem to talk about the work anymore. Increasingly it seems they're just hawking their wares.

2010's theme for me is the notion of a writer's community. So I'm more sensitive to this stuff, and thinking about it just a little bit more critically, I imagine.

I have nothing against editors making a living. So perhaps I'm overreacting.

They've never published me. So perhaps I'm a dog in a manger.

Or maybe I really just don't like workshops.

Last year, or a little before, I had contemplated joining one of their Master Classes. The next night I had a dream that I attended one, and a group of people held me down and pissed in my face. The bad taste in my mouth?

What do you think? The way of the future?