Lose Your Mind an Hour, Gain a Poem
And just when I thought I'd finished the Fabulous Beast: Poems manuscript, another poem appeared Monday. It was rather startling -- I was saying (to anyone who would listen) that there might be one more myth poem in the collection, but I thought that was just something you say to make yourself feel better about inspiration running out. Apparently, daylight savings knocked a poem loose from the tight, confused knot that is my brain (when it threw every other part of my life off kilter). So I'm not complaining about the loss of an hour -- although trying to get the kids adjusted to the new schedule is a test of my fortitude, to say the least.
A.P. and I met on Monday, too, to discuss his excellent new poems and the order of poems in my MS. I'm not sure he got anything out of it (basically I just babbled about how good his new poems are and drew hearts and checks all over the pages . . . because I'm a thirteen year old girl), but his feedback about my work was really helpful and affirming and I feel like I've got a good book on my hands.
And I said that I was going to wait until the summer to fine tune the language and meter in the fairy tale, but I might actually do this over the next few weeks, as I'd like to send the fairy tale out to a couple of publications that have spring submission deadlines. So I have that headache to look forward to -- trying to balance midterms and my insane, self-imposed writing schedule. Self-sabotage, activate!
This week features the (hopefully) Last Official Sabbatical Freakout, as my report is due . . . um, tomorrow. I've been hemming and hawing over whether or not I should include a link to this blog in the report to show my writing process; it might be necessary to explain why it took me so much time to write the fairy tale, and why I couldn't even begin to work on my play until that long poem was complete. My primary reservation about including the blog has to do with my potty mouth, and in particular my overuse of the word "d****e" (I write that, and then I'm like, "what? I'm gonna start censoring myself NOW?") but my friend and colleague E.C. thinks the sabbatical committee can handle it. This is, after all, the tone and voice of the blog -- and even if the language leaves something to be desired, it HAS been, right up until this point, about the projects I've been completing over the course of the sabbatical. So it's relevant, and maybe even necessary to show my progress on these projects.
Today features two back-to-back meetings before my Short Story class, which doesn't bode well for finishing the sabbatical report during daylight hours OR my Short Story Class, which I always feel I'm running into at the last second, minutes after printing out the quiz. (No, wait. That's not what it feels like. That's what it is. My poor students!) I suppose I'll use my office hour after class to work on the sabbatical report, but I have also a long, long list of tasks I'm supposed to complete for the creative writing festival and in the interest of timeliness I think I must really direct my attention THERE for an hour today.
Which means I'll probably be staying up late tonight . . . unless I stop writing this post and begin to work on my sabbatical report . . . now . . .
*Crickets chirping*
FINE. I'll go write my sabbatical report NOW.
A.P. and I met on Monday, too, to discuss his excellent new poems and the order of poems in my MS. I'm not sure he got anything out of it (basically I just babbled about how good his new poems are and drew hearts and checks all over the pages . . . because I'm a thirteen year old girl), but his feedback about my work was really helpful and affirming and I feel like I've got a good book on my hands.
And I said that I was going to wait until the summer to fine tune the language and meter in the fairy tale, but I might actually do this over the next few weeks, as I'd like to send the fairy tale out to a couple of publications that have spring submission deadlines. So I have that headache to look forward to -- trying to balance midterms and my insane, self-imposed writing schedule. Self-sabotage, activate!
This week features the (hopefully) Last Official Sabbatical Freakout, as my report is due . . . um, tomorrow. I've been hemming and hawing over whether or not I should include a link to this blog in the report to show my writing process; it might be necessary to explain why it took me so much time to write the fairy tale, and why I couldn't even begin to work on my play until that long poem was complete. My primary reservation about including the blog has to do with my potty mouth, and in particular my overuse of the word "d****e" (I write that, and then I'm like, "what? I'm gonna start censoring myself NOW?") but my friend and colleague E.C. thinks the sabbatical committee can handle it. This is, after all, the tone and voice of the blog -- and even if the language leaves something to be desired, it HAS been, right up until this point, about the projects I've been completing over the course of the sabbatical. So it's relevant, and maybe even necessary to show my progress on these projects.
Today features two back-to-back meetings before my Short Story class, which doesn't bode well for finishing the sabbatical report during daylight hours OR my Short Story Class, which I always feel I'm running into at the last second, minutes after printing out the quiz. (No, wait. That's not what it feels like. That's what it is. My poor students!) I suppose I'll use my office hour after class to work on the sabbatical report, but I have also a long, long list of tasks I'm supposed to complete for the creative writing festival and in the interest of timeliness I think I must really direct my attention THERE for an hour today.
Which means I'll probably be staying up late tonight . . . unless I stop writing this post and begin to work on my sabbatical report . . . now . . .
*Crickets chirping*
FINE. I'll go write my sabbatical report NOW.
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