Second Thoughts

I miss Caffeine Destiny. I changed the home page. Now it says "Not the Final Issue."

That feels better.

Fiction

Sometimes I think I would like to write fiction. Stories seem so substantial, so important, such complete little worlds. They take longer to read than poems, they can be optioned for movie rights (okay, seldom but still) and they can be published in collections which are several hundred pages long, and if you start a story and kind of just keep going for like ten years it can grow up into a novel, which are even MORE substantial than poems. Plus fiction's appeal seems more universal - to the reading public I mean - than poems. Whether any of that matters is anyone's guess.

I love to read stories.

I am not very good at writing them, I have been finding out this week. Or finding out again, I should say.

Parts of fiction I can do. I can write a paragraph that sounds reasonably unmoronic. I have a few paragraphs in the story I'm working on - yes I've been trying to write a story this past week or so - that I like. But the rest of my story is kind of a mess. I wrote one very quick lame-o first draft, just to feel like I had a plot to fall back on, that it had some sort of a direction. Then I went back to the beginning to revise and make it sound like an actual story.

But I am at the point I usually get with a story, where I think, should I finish this? What is the point of finishing this?

But, however. I'd really like to write a few decent stories in this lifetime. I just keep putting it off. It's kind of fun, though, moving people around and making them say and do things, and being surprised sometimes when they say something you didn't really have to think about for that long - they just kind of say it and it takes you off in another direction, and that's fun. But plot - jeez! It's like math!

At times when writing fiction I think, be patient, just keep writing it. It takes time, a different sort of time, and it's a different proces.

Other times I think, oh go write a poem enough already.

Well, we'll see. I think it's just going to take a long time if I want to finish a story, because I write fiction slowly. I write scenes and then I cut them, or I have an idea for what I want to happen and then it changes completely. Due in a large part to the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to fiction. Still, there it is.

Well, we'll see.

Friday

I ordered a bunch of cool collage supplies from Art Chix Studio. I'm looking forward to making some new collages!

It's Friday night and Laura is making chocolate chip cookies and Max is at batting practice. This weekend he has two games, Saturday and Sunday.

Last Sunday I gave a reading at the Silverton Poetry Festival. It was really fun and it made me want to do more readings!

I saw a few poems by Rebecca Loudon online and I want to buy her book. Her blog is here, and she is also a violinist! So!

I ran three miles today; I'm supposed to run 13 on May 12 - I'm running the Hippie Chick Half Marathon! As if!

Have not kept up the poem a day thing. But I have several poems in the works and I feel fine about not churning out one a day. They will get finished.

Michael and I are going to see They Came From Way Out There on Sunday.

Rest in peace, Mstislav Rostropovich.

Spring!

I heard a frog tonight on my walk with the dogs. Spring is here!

The tour was an amazingly great time. I think the audiences in Newport, Lincoln City and Astoria enjoyed the readings. I know I did! I had never been to Astoria before and I want to go back soon. Our next tour is to Roseburg, Klamath Falls and Ashland, with Paulann Petersen, Scott Nadelson, and Keith Scales.

I didn't write any poems at the Sylvia Beach Hotel, but during my stay there in the Sigrid Undset room I did come up with the title for a poem, and I wrote the draft of it today. It's called "My Origami House."

Newport Bound

I leave very soon for Newport. Tonight Floyd Skloot, Gina Ochsner, George Aguilar, Sr. and Edwin Battistella will be reading at the Newport Public Library. You can read about it in The Newport Times or The Statesman.

The words on the collage are from a poem by Floyd Skloot, Dowsing For Joy.

I was reading Gina Ochsner's book, People I Wanted to Be last night. I'm really looking forward to meeting her.

We should return Saturday in time for Max's game, although if this weather keeps up I think it will be yet another cancelled game.

I have to write a poem or two on the tour, to keep up with my poem a day goal! I hope to write a poem at the Sylvia Beach Hotel while I'm there.

This just in - I won a copy of Kristy Bowen's Fever Almanac . If you read her blog, details of the contest are there. And look, I finally made it to Kristy's blog!

April Poems

For those of you are wondering how this whole "writing a poem a day" thing is going, it's going pretty well! I have written four since April 5th. Two of them I like, one I would like more if it were revised some more and the one I wrote this evening I am not so crazy about. However, I'm doing it! I think it's a good practice to get into.

Thursday I leave for the Oregon Book Awards Author tour; the writers and I are going to Newport, Lincoln City and Astoria. So come see us! There is information about it on the
Newport Public Library web site.

My mom told me two jokes on Easter. One of them I had heard before. One of them has the punch line, "Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me." It's a Forrest Gump joke. I laughed.

Bunny Found a Friend

Michael surprised me last night and brought home the other bunny. He put it on the table next to the other bunny, but I didn't notice it until Laura mentioned it. What a sweetie (the bunny and the husband).

I told Amy I like them too much to take them down on Monday! She said I can keep them up all of April. I guess it's a rule or something. Good!

I am going to try to write a poem every day for the rest of the month - in celebration of National Poetry Month! Can I do it? I think I can! I was inspired by Kristy Bowen, who has been posting some of her poems that she is writing for National Poetry Writing Month, which I had never heard of until yesterday. But Kristy is brave and posts hers on her blog and I don't think I'll post mine. Reb Livingston is also posting hers on her blog .

I"ll just post a few lines of the poem I wrote today. Here's the first line:

You were a dove, an open window.

Here's the last line:

You made the trees misbehave.

Now you can make up your own poem, by filling in the rest. It's National Poetry Writing Month - you can do it!

I know my mother is coming for a visit. How do I know this? I dusted the end table in the living room. I never dust.

My big hope is that the dust-free end table will distract her from the piles of unfolded laundry and the counter in the bathroom, should either of those housekeeping issues not be remedied before her arrival.

Easter Bunny

Easter is 5 days away. I bought this bunny today. She is 18 inches tall. She is standing by the door because she is hoping I'll let her take a walk outside.

I have been reading Feign, a chapbook by Kristy Bowen, put out by New Michigan Press. Some of the poems were published in Caffeine Destiny. It's a great chapbook - and Kristy has a book coming out soon! She also has a blog and she is the founder of dancing girl press. A busy woman! I love her poems - here's one of hers from the Poetry Daily site.

I did yoga today, and planted geraniums even though it's a bit early for geraniums.