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?

Back home

Here is the quick summary of my California roadtrip:

Poems written: None
Furniture sold: None
Caltrain rides: 2
Fun in the sun in Los Gatos: Tons
Pounds gained: 5
Hours in the truck: About 36
Hours that I drove the truck: 2 1/2
Rejections received: 1

I don't know why, but every time I leave town, I count up the number of mail days that I'm gone and anticipate all the poetry mail that I'm going to get. Why would more mail (acceptances or otherwise) arrive just because I'm not here? Silly me.

Back to real world, real life. Time to lose some weight and write some poems!

P.S. A few new Italy and France poems are on the sofa.

It ain't Italy...

but I think these are olive trees.

I do enjoy the meditative state that a roadtrip can put me in. But I always think it will open my mind to new places (creative states as well as the changing landscape). This time, I even kept my notebook on my lap. But while we traveled down I-5, my thoughts frittered around mundane daydreams. I even tried nudging myself in a direction I thought might be more productive. No luck.

How do you nudge a meditative state (or something like a meditative state)? How do you get the most creative exploration in your traveling time?

Traveling light

I have one small rolling suitcase, and it's pretty full, plus one gym bag, which is fuller than I planned, and my usual dowdy purse and a fleece jacket and a Panama hat in a hat box.

I have one notebook for free writes and another notebook for revisions (as though I might work), but I have only one chapbook of poems and one (short, kid-lit, halfway finished already) novel to read.

What was I thinking?

Plot trauma

I have an addiction
to reading fiction…

I spent a large chunk of the weekend reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. How large? Think about how thick that book is.

Along about page 650, I was having a really hard time putting it down, and I started getting testy.

"No, I need to read it now! I have to find out what happens."

Now I am reading Girls in Pants, the Third Summer of the Sisterhood—another novel, another kids' book. (When I was a kid, I plunged into summer reading. Now, as a parent, I seem to be reading the bidding of my kids. My mandatory list...)

But after my long poetry-only reading period, I was a bit startled at how a good narrative, a fast-moving plot, could wrap me around its dramatic little finger.

Can poetry be a page turner? Or should it even be?

*****

Without any plot worthy of Machiavelli or the Medicis, I've updated the sofa with some poems inspired by visits to Italy and France.

From Conversations about Creativity, in an interview with Kim Addonizio:

"A feeling of spaciousness is crucial. Ideas come from reading, experiences, TV, looking at art, dreams, eavesdropping. Living in as many directions as possible."

More where that came from.

8 facts/habits

This came from Kelli's blog.

Players list 8 facts/habits about themselves.

Here are mine:

1. I am a morning person, and I tend to get my best writing ideas then even if I don't have time to write them down. (Morning could mean 3:00 in the morning, and I rarely turn on the light and start writing then—even though I'll be kept awake longer by the idea inside my head.)


2. If it isn't morning, my best ideas come while I am moving—even sitting on a bus counts. Or riding a bike, walking, and sometimes even driving.


3. I don't like driving, although sometimes I enjoy it in spite of myself. I also don't like to make left turns—when I'm driving.


4. I eat Kashi Go-Lean Crunch cereal every day for breakfast—preferably with blueberries and a spoonful of Theo Cacao nibs.


5. I am afraid of everything.
   Corollary: I worry about everything.


6. I am tired of cooking when I have to, but I enjoy cooking when I don't have to.


7. I like to ride my bike, especially when the hills are easy.


8. I love em dashes.