Next week in Seattle we'll have a new law: No talking on a handheld cell phone while driving. ("Look, Ma! No hands!")
This means that when my daughter calls me, I'll need to pull over before I answer the phone. On the one hand, this is not a big deal for me because I try to avoid driving my car and I also try to avoid talking on the phone while driving my car. It's a stick-shift, and I have only two hands. (And just forget texting. That's way beyond me.)
On the other hand, the pulling over part could get tricky, especially during rush hours. However, if I can become more agile at pulling over to talk on the phone, I can apply that skill to poetry.
How often are you doing something (cooking, driving, weeding) when a poem arrives. I know that poems come to me much more readily when I can't follow the threads with a pen than when I am ready at the computer or an old-fashioned paper tablet.
How do you interrupt yourself to write?
Random thoughts on writing poetry and life in general
About me
- Joannie Stangeland
- Joannie Kervran Stangeland writes poetry and the Poe-query blog. Her new book, Into the Rumored Spring, was published by Ravenna Press. Joannie's also the author of two chapbooks--A Steady Longing for Flight (winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award) and Weathered Steps (Rose Alley Press). Her poems have also appeared in The Midwest Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and other publications.
My site
Poetry on the sofa
A Writer's Guide to Microsoft Office
Videos in the Guide
- Poetry notes in OneNote
- Create a manuscript (part 1)
- Create a manuscript (part 2)
- Create a booklet
- Create a flyer you can print or send in email
- Track writing submissions
- Don't miss a deadline!
- Single-space your line-spacing in Word 2007
- Track your word count in Word 2007
- Setting up a Mail Merge in Publisher
Links
- The Sun Hunters
- Ravenna Press
- Rose Alley Press
- The Alchemist's Kitchen: Susan Rich's blog
- Floating Bridge Press
- Mutating the signature: Dana Guthrie Martin's blog
- paperarts: Jane Chang's blog
- Judith Skillman's site
- Kathleen Flenniken
- Open Books: A Poem Emporium
- First Draft Leonardo Likes Gulls
- The Virtual World: Peter Pereira's blog
- Premium T.: T Clear's blog
- AndrewJShields
- Corn Shake: Aimee Nez's blog
- Jeannine Blogs
- It's Not About The Hair: Debra Jarvis's blog
- Thomas Stangeland, Artist/Craftsman
- Pavement and velodromes: Christine's blog
- Shelburne Arts Co-op
- Poetry Super Highway
- Nostalgia: The Poetess at Green Lake
- The Poetry Foundation
4 comments:
Ah. This is THE dilemma, is it not?
So many lost poems because of this. When a poem calls and you're driving, do you pull over to answer it?! Poems choose us, rather than the other way around. Wish I had an answer.
I find that I have to do to be inspired and then somehow be ready to catch the idea before it flees away. I have found that even if I tell myself, "that is a great idea - don't forget it". I will later remember that I had an idea but not be able to remember exactly what it was. On the other hand, if I can jot down one or two words, I can reel in the rest of my idea at my leisure.
To just sit and write without having been inspired is an invitation to tea with a blank wall.
That's great if you can reel it in later. I always wonder whether I'll be able to pick up the thread and regain that momentum.
Hopeful me would tell myself that it's like muscles, and maybe I'll get better with practice.
I'd rather take a break and write right then, but we know as mothers and wives that is impossibility. So like you, I'd rather get something down rather than nothing.
And maybe as you imply, these brain sit ups will give me the sexiest brain around (maybe it will make up for the real sit ups that I fail to do - LOL)
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