So, I've been writing poetry for nine years straight, after taking a significant break after University to get married and have a couple of kids. I started writing right after I started going to Grace Church. Not sure exactly what was up with that, but I have my own ideas on the subject. I also started playing the piano again at that time, so who knows?
I have a bit to catch up on in the book, but I *do* know that I'm supposed to write every morning. How is that working for me? Well, this is what happened today so far: Alarm woke me up at the usual time of 6:50. This is the one day of the week that my son starts school an hour later than the other days, and with the exception of Weds, today, he (D), and my daughter (F), leave at 7:30-ish. This morning D was up at 7, because F was in the bathroom upstairs doing her hair.
It is usually so hard to pry D out of bed before school. He's 13. F is 16. But today, when I thought I'd do my Morning Pages before anyone else got up, everyone got up. So, I'm doing them now, before heading off to sub at work. This is also usually my free day--no work. This is my time to figure out how to make this writing-every-day thing work for the duration of the Artist's Way program--12 weeks altogether.
So, I'm writing, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to write about. Just free writing, and it is supposed to be longhand, which isn't happening, at least not today. This is faster for me. I guess the experience of pen in hand, pen to paper, the feel of ink making tracks for me as I think and release is the whole idea, but this, quite frankly, is working for me today. It feels good to write. Or, to keyboard, as is the case.
We're supposed to get in three pages a day. I don't know if I can think that far! I feel like my brain is full of a great many things these days, as I've taken on some new projects, not the least of which is blogging, which I'm fairly new to. Good thing about that is that I'm not spending as much time on Facebook. Don't get me wrong, I like Facebook, and have some good friends there. Many of the friends I'm sharing this journey with, in fact. So, I've got this support group to keep me at it, and I'm going to try to do the same thing for them.
Once I've written my three pages, I'm not supposed to look at them for several weeks. Okay. I got this bright idea of blogging my Morning Pages, so I can't look at my old posts until way later. Will these exercises jump-start my poetry writing? I hope so.
Poetry writing--another deal. I want to be better at it. I read stuff I like in journals such as Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Image, AGNI, Margie, Crazyhorse, and I think, wow, I wish I could write like that. I see the way some poets use metaphor and I think, why can't I see things that way? I'm now going to become more intimately in tune with my Censor. Am I going to like my Censor, or come to hate - what? Him, her? It?
What is my Censor, anyway? Where did it come from, and what does it look like? I won't presume to know at this point. Maybe that'll come to me later on.
Strange thought, one that I've been wanting to address in a poem for a long time, and it only comes to me when I'm typing-- why is it that when I'm trying to type the work Good I often type God?
This rambling is going to make me late for work. I might tune in again a little later on today. We'll see. *After* I read what I'm supposed to read, and after I do my chores, and pick up my kids and see to their homework and get dinner going...
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Okay, I've finished the Basic Tools chapter, and will start Chapter One later today. I've been tweaking my blogs, and and getting ready to make yogurt for the first time. As Julia Cameron says, these simple activities can serve to fill the creative well, or stock the the pond. On to making yogurt.
--R
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