Taking a Break from Work

I have to work for a few hours today in the office. I hate having to come in on the weekends.

I received a rejection on Friday from Water~Stone Review. Oh, well.

After tinkering with a poem I wrote about eleven months ago I’ve decided to let go of it and move it into my “Finished!” electronic folder. I’m not all that happy with the poem, but it is the best it is going to be for what it is trying to do. I’d pretty much have to scrap 90% of the poem and start over otherwise. I’d rather put my energy into revising other poems with more promise or write new work. I’ll probably submit this poem in a couple of months and see what happens.

That poem I’ve been struggling with on the beginning is staring to really develop. I have two six-line stanzas that I am content with. I wrote the second stanza this morning and have an idea on what the third stanza will look like. Whenever possible I like to keep the momentum going in a poem I’m working on by stopping at a place where I know what will come next. This helps me re-enter the poem quickly and retain the energy. I usually make an attempt at the next line and/or write myself some notes on what I think I’ll be saying next. I’ll also say on this poem that I’ve started a version B of it. The two-stanza version that I worked on this morning takes place in the early summer. I was curious to see what would happen if I tried writing the poem set in November. So far the poems seem to be diverging in interesting ways. I may get two poems out of this, or I may decide that version A is superior to version B and devote myself entirely to version A.

Okay, back to work.