Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Draft chaos

Little thoughts, ideas all day. Finally, a chance to write them down.

*****

I've finished my kid-lit fiction binge (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Girls in Pants). This morning, I got back to my poetry-only program, reading Louise Gluck and Judith Skillman on the bus. It's amazing how inspired I was by the time I arrived in Redmond. I was ready to write all day. Instead, I went to work.

But I got to have breakfast. (It's a great motivator.)

*****

Jamie often tells me, "Go with your strengths." This usually refers to worrying about something, which certainly is my strong suit. But I've given a lot of thought to what I'm good at—or at least what I do better than anything else:

Eating and writing.

I'm also a pretty competent cook, because it's a handy skill if you want to eat.

Why don't I write more about food? I'm not a food writer or a restaurant critic—but why don't I write more poems about food? After all, maybe that's my passion.

*****

Intermission:

Today, while doing research for my editing job, I found two new websites:

  • Word Count Journal
    From their website: Word count journal is a new blog format where you write one word your first day, two words the second, three words the third, etc. By the end of a non-leap year you'll have written a total of 66,795 words, more words than most novels.

    Am I just the last person to know about this?


  • Watermark
    a poet's notebook

*****

And now: Draft chaos

I'm trying to pull together all my Camargue poems in their various states of completion and get them all to the same state of completion.

Even though I do most of my writing on the computer now, the key versions are those with the revisions on them—the notes and suggestions of my poet friends. Those important pieces of paper seem to land in various stacks even though I have a divided folder and very good intentions.

I think I've managed to gather the Camargue poems (although the work is not done and I realized today that I don't have a title, not even a working title).


How do you keep track of your drafts?

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