Do I dare? and do I dare?

Oh, my. It's April 30th already? Interesting. Suddenly my intentions to revise 'Mississippi' in May seem a little more, well, I'll be kind to myself and say foolhardy, than they did in March.

Here's one of the problems, which just occurred to me: it's a hell of a lot nicer in May than it is in November, when I originally wrote it. And it's light out for a lot longer. I actually really enjoyed getting up early and writing, with the morning's lightening dark for company. When it's light out & I have lots of time before work, I always feel guilty for being the world's laziest gardener.

But you know, I think I can do it. The early dawns will help me get out of bed sooner, possibly. And I'll have a really good excuse for not gardening, so I won't have to feel so guilty. I think I'm going to take the plunge.

As before, I'll post my work on here as I go.

I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster nearly inched up to the top of the first hill...

Woo hoo!!!

Sometimes it's the simplest words that say it best, n'est-ce pas? :)

I'm super-stoked - I've got a freelance gig with a new magazine! It's called Alegria Living, and it's beautifully produced. Plus, my assignment is really cool; I get to tour a wolf sanctuary! Should be pretty awesome. I'm a little nervous, but also have always wanted to get up close to a real wolf, without having the whole instant-bloody-death thing involved. So this seems like a good opportunity.

I'm hoping the article will go well and they'll give me more assignments in the future. In the meantime, I'm just psyched that they liked my work enough to give me this one.

block this

Rrrrgh. I have the energy & time to write, but little to no actual creativity flowing. So frustrating. I've halfheartedly edited the start of a story, but to no avail. I've got a folder full of poetry with excellent criticism written all over it, but when I think about actually breaking into a poem, really taking it apart & putting it back together, I feel like I'm beating my head against an invisible wall.

I keep thinking about revising "Mississippi". I'm still planning to tackle it in May, but I'd sort of like to get some work done on the poetry - the ones trapped behind an invisible wall - and submit some of them to various places before I get back into the book.

I get so tired of my brain sometimes.

(snow inspired) or, my life in parentheses

So, yes, I realize the last several posts on here have followed this theme of snow. I am somewhat obsessed with snow, I admit it. And consequently am quite happy to have a snowy afternoon, the house to myself, a good beer (Boulder's Mojo Rising) and the time to write.

Ah, Nature, she is a fickle muse (a la the Tick: "Gravity, she is a harsh mistress"), much less dependable than music. When a story's influenced by a song, I can just play the song or create a whole playlist that supports that mood, like I did with 'Mississippi'. When it's location, I can travel to there (or I can't, and just don't work on that piece for a while). But when a story's weather-inspired, nature torments me in the worst way sometimes.

Once again I'm editing my snow-inspired story, and I think I keep getting distracted at the same place every time I go through it. It happened again today (well, I do have Braveheart on the TV, which is pretty damn distracting). But not before I noticed that (hey, is that Stephen Fry?) Right! Back to the blogging thing. Um, yes - got distracted, but not before I noticed that the story's rather disjointed over the course of a couple chapters. The problem is, since I keep consistently flaking out during that part of the story, I'm having a hard time fixing it. D'oh!

Evidently I'm in quite the parenthetical mood (you might expect me to ask if you noticed, but I give you more credit for intelligence than that).

Hmm... it stopped snowing. I could deal with fixing the difficult-to-fix thing another day. Tempting. (Plus, I'm kinda hungry.)

Here, have a poem:

what to do

what to do when the words won’t come?
I could tie my tongue around a tree and
climb it. I could tear out my eyes
replace them with prisms
refract – reflect –
a new point of view.
All the noises blend into harmony at one
point.
Can’t pin it on a map, no signs mark this road
so I hope to trip over it, flip a page
glance up at just this instant
see it hesitate, flash out of view –
not even a color, just a sense of color light refracted,
gone. I stand breathless struck & ringing

hibernation

Exhausted; haven't been sleeping well lately. Tough to get a good night's sleep when you dream about work all night. But I'm not (for once) getting on here to bitch. I just keep having the first couple lines from this poem run through my head. Considering that it's springtime and supposed to snow later, it seemed like a fitting one to post.

...Okay, so I started this yesterday, and then didn't have the poem available to post. Here 'tis. I'm still tired & it's supposed to snow again tomorrow, so the relevance remains...


hibernation

tired, so tired, and this does not end here.
no, it never ends here. rows of small lead
weights attached themselves to my bones.
now they sway and clink whenever I move;
I walk as if under water. as if air were a force
I must reckon with. as if it drips and flows,
the task of inhale and exhale too much.

summer ebbs; I place myself in the quiet river
every day, offer myself to the water
asking for a baptism. like a frog I want
to shed my skin, emerge wholly new,
thrilled with wearing myself inside out.
I want to wrest myself from my skin, replace
my eyes, shed my hands and useless tongue.
let me hibernate, bury myself in the mud,
winter quietly; emerge rested, glad-eyed.

now deep in this waking dream, air sealed
within me, my mind draws pictures of spring
against my eyelids. I don’t want to get tangled,
caught half-born, eyes blinking, blinded.
the earth stirs around me, gathers herself, preparing;
she breathes in: my eyes open, I break from myself
I am free: alive: I can breathe –