Slow Going

I am working on my writing daily, but it is not going as quickly as I’d hoped.

Right now I am battling a terrible toothache and it has taken precedence over everything else in my life. I keep throwing medicine at it to dull the pain. I both look forward to and dread my dentist appointment on Tuesday.

I am depressed by this summer’s afflictions. First it was the damned cough that hung around for over a week. Now it is a painful tooth that wants me to stop everything I’m doing and pay it some attention.

Last night I contemplated a hammer or the pliers to rid myself of its existence. Today I wonder if a knife might more cleanly cut it out? As long as I can halfway dull the pain of it, I will tolerate it until the dentist gives me whatever bad news he will deliver on Tuesday.

Until then I try to write and I browse through what is already written for something to clean up, tighten up and try to publish.

Oh, tooth, be gone!

Be gone, I say!

Take the pain from me

Away!

I cannot work,

I cannot play,

Tooth, oh, tooth pain,

Be gone today!

There. It inspired poetry. Written just now by Constance Barr Corbett 6/28/14

Interruptions

I am trying to write and my son comes in to tell me about the vet and the pills we can get for one dog and the shot the other one needs, but they have to call the previous vet to be sure which one to give her and everything cost,  cost, cost money and I’m unemployed at the moment and how in the hell can I write with interruptions like this?

To be a serious, professional writer, I need to live alone or go somewhere where I don’t know anyone and will not be disturbed.

No one respects a writer unless the writer has already made a name for him/herself.

I have a terrible toothache. I dread seeing the dentist next week, but I have an appointment and need to. Is it too much to ask to be left alone as I work on my craft/writing? Can others NOT figure out things without disturbing me to see what I think?

I think I want to be left alone before all my gathered thoughts fly away so I can get them down on paper. That’s what I think, Damnit!

Cards

Writers are able to make their own greeting cards, and I think it’s more personal when they do.

My vet did an excellent job doing surgery on my old cat. I have made a card for him and as soon as I can add a picture of the cat, it will be in the mail to him.

People tell me they enjoy my home-made cards. I enjoy making them.

I think people who are not writers could make their own cards as well. It’s especially easy on a computer. Just write from the heart.

Notes

Today I am going through binders with notes from various things that will help me write. My ultimate goal is to find the binder with the notes/chapters of the book I hope to finish this summer. It’s not the poetry book as that is mostly written and just needs organizing a little better and cover designed, etc., to get it finished. This binder I seek is a chapter book about something that happened in my life and sometimes happens in the lives of others. It’s a wake up call for America and Americans about something that doesn’t work right and needs reviewing. It’s a memoir of sorts. It’s lost. I have the chapters here on the computer, but after writing the same chapter 3 times, I need to print out the chapters and put them in order and see what’s missing and what needs to be written while rewriting what is already written. First step in this endeavor is to find the binder with the already printed out chapters in it. While trying to do that, I am finding more gems.

I have an article coming out this August in Teachers of Vision Magazine. it’s about Writing. They already used one I wrote about the Classroom Read Aloud. I just found a binder with notes on the ten ways language/literacy is used. This may lead to another article. At some point, if I publish/write enough articles, I may put them together and publish a book. Who knows? Right now I just want to find that binder.

Kickstarter Preparation

This morning I have listed as many poems as I can remember that  I’ve had published. I’m sure there are more. I will also go through my folders for other poems I may have omitted. I’ve decided to dedicate the book to my dog, Atlas, and have a short column (letter?) that was in Dennis Rogers’ N&O column – he used letters from readers in a Friday column titled “Letters and leftovers”. He used the one I sent him about Atlas. That will be a prologue, or whatever it will be called (introduction?) at the beginning of the book.

I want to do a little reading aloud – maybe a couple lines from the beginning of various poems. I want to share what success as a writer I have had so far. I want to convince people to invest in this endeavor for both me and them, but mostly for them – if they are true lovers of rhyming poetry that tell little stories – poems that aren’t obscure. Poems that paint a picture in a few words and perhaps express some of the same love they’ve felt for their pets. If I can reach others who enjoy what I’ve written and they can relate to it – I will be happy with my work.

Another Day . . . Another Chance to Write

How do you view your days? Mine are usually viewed as to how much I can accomplish and what I want to do with that day.

This is the first day of summer. It is cooler than some of the later days of spring have been.

I’ve set a goal for myself as far as writing for the rest of my time off (summer) from work. I will edit and prepare one poem daily for my Pet Poetry book. This should not be too difficult as many of the poems have been written and several have already been published in magazines. I wish I could figure out a way to have a picture accompany each poem. This is still in the works in my head at the moment, but the goal of each day is to choose a poem and make sure it’s perfectly written and ready to be sent to the publisher.

I also have another book I’d like to see published by year’s end. Maybe it will be a Christmas gift to myself? I will work on a chapter of that daily. Like the poetry book, much of it is written, but I need to see what’s missing and write that in.

Then there is the clutter of a house I live in. When I moved in almost 3 years ago, it wasn’t the house I wanted and I didn’t unpack many of the boxes because I was going to move again soon. I guess I should face reality and unpack them this summer. There are things I still haven’t found that I’d like to be using. So unpacking a box each day is also a goal.

I work better with a plan and I appear to have one. First Day of summer – the beginning of something new – what will you do with yours?

Time Is Not A Problem

It’s summer and I have lots of free time. My goal was to write, or work on my writing, four hours a day. I find that in the first two free days (not working) that I have failed at that goal. However, I have spent some time working on my writing. I found a delightful post on Kickstarter by a poet who got the funding to self-publish her book. Since this is a goal of mine for the summer, I spent time perusing her ideas and methods. I do plan to have a Kickstarter Project Page up by the end of June. I will post the link to it here when it’s completed.