bookgoblin

One of my hobbies is, as you might have guessed, writing. Sometimes I write stories, sometimes poems, sometimes just blog entries and book reviews.

Lately, though, what I’ve been writing is a whole lot of nothing. This happens, so it doesn’t really distress me, it’s just a little frustrating. I had a couple of things that I was working on, and now I don’t seem to have anything. And I know it’s somewhat of a cop out: I’m a technical writer, I write manuals for a living, and at work, I show up, and I start writing, and I have to do it even when I don’t feel like it. The same tactics can be applied to my creative writing, but I come up with a hundred million excuses not to do the work when I don’t feel like it. It’s been a bleak summer for creative writing.

A friend and I meet about twice a month to share and critique each other’s stuff, but last time, neither of us had much, so we did a couple of writing exercises. We wrote 2 poems each, taking the first line from someone else’s published poem, setting a few rules, and then writing for a specific length of time. I find these kind of exercises great for jarring my brain. Unfortunately, it only seemed to work for that afternoon. We’re meeting again today, and again I have nothing, so maybe another exercise will “take” this time.

So here are the two poems that I wrote last time. They’re not great, but it just felt good to know that whatever “muscle” it is that enables me to write something other than a procedure still works. I no longer remember where the first line of each poem came from - we used her books - but those first lines are not mine. They were the jump-start, so I italicized them.

First I became a green grocer: bad.

not my destiny, to be a mere shopkeeper.

Then, I dug my neighbor’s graves.

Also bad. No one thanks you for something

so darkly necessary: they turn their faces.

Finally, a sailor. Ah: here is my fate!

Endless horizon, waves bowing before me;

we disappear to name the conquered lands.

With its foot in the door of your head

doubt enters the room.

It’s not polite: it doesn’t ask, “how

are the children?” It doesn’t exclaim