Writing log between 24 feb to 8 mar '25
In a fit of energy (uncharacteristic, since I've been ill, but very, very welcome, even if it wiped me out after) I wrote 6,500 words for a new story over the course of two days. Also, poetry!
Late February '25
In a fit of energy (uncharacteristic, since I've been ill, but very, very welcome, even if it wiped me out after) I wrote 6,500 words for a new story over the course of two days. Apart from a couple of sentences, none of it is fit for reading. Though I don't completely despise it, I just have to begin again, and will change absolutely everything about the plot. I think the broad strokes of characterization might almost be tolerable. And if the words seem silly to me now, sometimes you need to write something silly to uncover something worthwhile.
On a related point: the 6,500 words of the above-mentioned draft included some Time Travel as a plot device (I've been thinking about El-Mohtar's and Gladstone's completely excellent This Is How You Lose the Time War, among other stories) and the draft I created made me realize that I do not find Time Travel much fun to write — maybe because I have a hard enough time enjoying it as a reader. Though I may return to the idea one day, if I do something with this little draft, it will be in a less wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey way.
Revisiting a poem
I won't spend too much time on this, because I've already shared my process refining several drafts of a poem into a final-ish product. (Because the most recent drafts are approaching their final incarnation and I describe the drafting process a little, the post is locked to paid subscribers.)
Gersande La Flèche
More unfinished/half-begun ideas:
- I had a mad idea that I should try to figure out how many poems I've written in my life (apart from the obvious answer: too many, near all of them bad). I have all the notebooks stashed away in lonely corners, a scanner that mostly works, and even the poems that are squirrelled away in my Notes.app or in old .rtf files from the 00s can be scrounged up. After giving it a bit of thought, I've decided to use Scrivener to manage the archive. It should be fairly easy to keep it organized chronologically and searchable. I haven't made much progress on the scanning front, and frankly every time I find a poem written before 2018 I want to fling myself into the sun. (As all writerly types know, when writing is elusive, there's always organizing and cleaning one's desk/work space. Organizing digital archives counts too!)
- Tried writing a poem from scratch and found it completely unproductive.
- A friend was telling me that in the 3,000 of Lord Byron's letters that have survived, his (break-up) letters to his mistress Lady Caroline Lamb about poetry and their tumultuous relationship are particularly romantic, so I went to dig them up. I guess Lord Byron's epistolary legacy, opinions about poetry, and the poetry of his mistresses are a new special interest? Thanks, universe, because I really needed another ridiculous distraction.
- Tried reworking another poem based on a years-old draft, like I did in my previous post. Though it was productive, it was not very successful.
- Speaking of dead poets, I've had Emily Dickinson swimming around in my brain again (I don't resent it, she is more than welcome to stay). Makes me wonder if I should be making more of an effort to rhyme, especially as I'm already completely in love with that sultry minx, the Em dash —
All in all, a lot more poetry than expected, and a bit more faffing about than I would like. With a bit of luck, I will have (more) interesting things to share in my next update. At the top of my todo: I want to get back to being more proseful!
