Well, that's that, I guess.

I applied to four MFA programs, admittedly to really top notch, reach-for-the-stars programs, and it looks like I've been rejected from all of them (the last one has yet to come, but on an online forum people have already heard back about interviews in my department). I also applied to and was rejected for a second time from a local fellowship program. The only one left right now is my application to a residency program in Maine, which I was rejected from last year.

Lots of rejection. And I am ok with it, really. It would have been exciting to turn a new page and plunge headlong into something new and different, but this is not my year, it is what it is.

What I know I need to do now is make more work. Lots of work. I need to put my head down and work, work, work. I need to make more things, more often. Better things. Because eventually whatever I've been trying to say will come through, and I know it will be through my work. Always has been this way, and always will. The best part of this whole thing is: there is no doubt in my mind what I have to do. I don't feel lost, or directionless, or forlorn at all. The only thing that has ever been sure in my life ever -- has been my work.

So. Back to the drawing board.