mimsy and outgrabe

Today was good! I managed to turn in the freelance reading group guide I was a business-day behind on (if I'm not careful, they're not gonna use me anymore), AND finish my latest myth poem, AND get the oil changed in my car before our trip to Virginia tomorrow. I felt so productive I'm taking a little time-out, although this could be a bad move because there's a pile of clean laundry downstairs that's about 4 feet deep and needs to be folded. How DOES one household generate so much laundry? Oh, AND, I'm writing in my blog while the boy takes a late-in-the-day nap and the girl does . . . wait, what is that child doing? Why is it so quiet in here? *Pause for investigation* She's playing Angry Birds while her brother naps. Phew. So anyway, where was I? Writing about writing in my blog. Oh yeah -- THERE'S another accomplishment. (To tell you the truth, I'm feeling a little guilty about letting her play video games, and then admitting it online, but ...

I've been really unfocused this week with my writing. I bounce between continuing the fairytale and revisions of my first myth poems, which I'd like to send out to a journal soon, and an idea for a brand new myth poem that's about 3 lines old and needs nearly 30 more. Hopefully I'll get in good work today -- yesterday I worked but it was through a fog of sleepiness (the boy was up, on and off, most of the previous night) and then I battled a period of mania due to coffee overload. (Which means that I struggled with the final two lines of a stanza for about two hours, trying to find the perfect near-rhyme. I didn't find the perfect near-rhyme, or even a half-way decent near rhyme. These are the times I need someone to slap me and say, "Walk away, Kain. Walk away." I would have been better off taking my butt and my dog out for a much-needed walk.) Anyhoo, this morning, some reading: 1. From How A Poem Happens , this entry from Sarah Arvio, about her...

This has been a good, good writing week. (And yes, it feels even better to acknowledge that.) And I did manage to avoid the temptation of a Deadwood marathon, so I was able to get a lot of work done before my husband came home, and thankfully he did return, on Monday. So, I followed through on my decision to return to my original plot for the fairytale poem. This is what the process of writing the fairytale has been like so far: (Yay, recap!) 1. Original idea sparked in Fall 2010. First poem written; narrative in nature. I wondered if maybe that was it -- the end. Then another poem followed about the character, and then another. Soon I had about ten lyric poems written sequentially, or at the very least, begun. Then teaching and festival planning and committee nonsense happened. Writing stopped. 2. Having put to rest the Sow Poems, I turned again to the fairytale at the end of July 2011. Based on a conversation I'd had with A.P. in the spring, I'd decided to restru...

1. This blog piece by Erika Meitner is interesting (and somewhat humbling, I imagine, for anyone who has written a book that falls somewhere in her "taxonomy" of unpublished poetry manuscripts). 2. This interview with Pedro Almodovar in BOMB magazine. I love BOMB. 3. This interview with Tobias Wolff. Have I mentioned that I love BOMB?

A.P. was nominated for this because of me. Because he's friends with someone so awesome. Just sayin'.

I begin the weekend with a rare feeling of enthusiasm and optimism about my work. It's not that I usually start my weekends feeling pessimistic and ambivalent -- about life in general OR about my writing. It's just that I have absolutely nothing going on this weekend but hanging out with my kids. Since my husband's out of town, I'm going to attempt productivity in the downtime I have (early morning, nap time, those odd moments when they're playing with one another peacefully, and after they're in bed.) After writing for the past two days, I believe I've found the happy middle ground with my accursed fairytale poem that I've been searching for, in earnest, since August. It's not time to rest on my laurels can, either. (I don't have laurels. I do, however, have a can. A can in desperate need of some treadmill time, too.) I am all too aware that I made a pledge in my last post to be finished with this manuscript by the end of the month. Of cours...

Today brings me one poem closer to manuscript completion, which is, you know, a good thing. A couple of items of interest/concern, however: 1. Today I wrote some lines that actually scared me. A little. I don't want to be too dramatic about it, so maybe, instead, let's say that I was exceedingly uncomfortable with those lines. Now, I've been in enough writing classes to know that those kinds of lines are usually the ones where you're taking risks, and usually risk = good & praiseworthy & character-building if nothing else. Well, I'm not so sure that applies to me here -- in fact, I'm sure it doesn't. These lines could turn out to be perfect crap by the time I reread them tomorrow (or this evening, more likely, 'cause I'm kinda obsessive like that). And there's a good chance they are crap -- they won't just magically turn into it! Anyway, my concern, or interest, is in the fear/uneasiness. I think that I was uneasy with what I wa...