I have been thinking the last couple of days about creative distractions, you know, those projects and efforts you dream up probably simply because working on other things is tougher, harder, more emotionally draining. While its going well, THE HUNGER PALACE is definitely turning in to one of these sorts of projects. While I've been determined to have a finished draft of the entire project by month's end, it's over-optimistic at best and tremendously foolhardy most likely, Originally it was an old project revived after the events of last fall, something that had fallen by the wayside until I picked it up again over holiday break. One that I gained some momentum on, but then sort of stalled out again. But it seems important to finish it, at least in rough form soonish, mostly because the wounds of it are still new and fresh and maybe it will seem less urgent as time goes on. I'm not sure how something that seems so urgent can also be dragging along stubbornly, but that us where I am at currently. Kind of like a cat on a leash that's sort of fallen over on it's side and refuses to move.
Over break, I actually stopped something else I was working on to devote my energies to that, an epistolary series that I intend to get to work on again by throwing my hat in the ring for NAPOWRIMO, So ideally, these mother-daughter poems would be in the can as much as they can be by the end of March. But then there are things dragging my writer attention--UNUSUAL CREATURES, finished as far as text goes, but still needing some tweaks before I even begin thinking about the final manifestation I plan to have done this summer Preparing HONEY MACHINE for the zine subscription (which is just about ready and will be done by next week). And another fun little project of zodiac poems that will be in little supermarket horoscope scrolls (we're taking AofR stuff to Zine Fest in May and I feel like these would go over nicely there.) They are also little boxy things, so I may just post them as I go on instagram as poetry postcards.. (I've been posting some samples of work this way, but lineated poems are a bit trickier to make square and still readable.)
They are also really fun to write, and not at all angsty, and remind me of the James Franco pieces, a little bit of no-pressure wordy fun.
In the realm of other distractions, last Sunday, somehow I found myself in the midst of a full-scale poetry shelf re-org effort (mostly because I was looking for my wayward copy of this book (there is a who-dunnit and tour at the Glessner House coming up . Since my shelving style was more a controled-chaos things, instead of cleaning the rest of the house, I wound up at least alphabetizing by author (and did find the Guess book eventually in some books that had slipped behind some others.) I also found an unread book from AWP 2014 I'd completely forgotten I picked up. So yay!
