What’s happening?

Isn’t it funny how some of us start conversations with people these days with this question: “What’s Happening?” And then the poor person being asked the question is in the hot seat having to come up with a quick and meaningful answer.

Well, my answer today is: writing is happening in my life. I feel like I’ve been at my computer these last few days since the new year and even before the holidays, almost non-stop. And that’s a good thing.

I gotten myself back into writing small stones, which are a couple of lines about anything. This month I started writing one every day, concentrating on a theme that has to do with something I observe in nature. By the way, I’ve written small stones for years, but recently took a break from them. I’m glad to be back. There’s a Facebook group in case you’re interested in joining in. This month they’re called January resolutions – the name changes every month.

My main project, however, is my new memoir about aging. I wrote a list of thirty topics to cover when I thought I’d enter the NaNoWriMo November writing challenge – so I’d have something to write about every day. However, I decided not to take that challenge. I took the Writer’s Digest November poem a day challenge instead. That of course didn’t stop me from starting my memoir. About mid-December I found that list of topics staring me in the face, and I got busy writing my new memoir, though not every day. I also excused myself from writing two thousand words on the days I wrote.  Now though I’m writing memoir more consistently at about a thousand words a day clip. I’ve also eliminated some topics by making them subtopics, and I sometimes spend more than just one day per topic. Right now I’m have a list of twenty-three topics. I’m on number seventeen.

One of my worries here is that I won’t end up with enough material to actually claim I’ve written a real book – I think memoirs need to be at least eighty thousand words while I’m only closing in on thirty thousand. But since I’m working on my first draft I’ll set that worry aside for now. My goal is to just write something about all the topics quickly and then go back to the beginning and start on the second draft. It’s possible that all I’ve written so far will never see the light of day.

And of course I’m still writing poems. Since the November PAD challenge I’m limiting my poetry writing to once a week, to Robert Lee Brewer’s Wednesday prompt. However, right at the start of the year I attended a wonderful poetry workshop with Sharon Olds and Naomi Shihab Nye up in Santa Cruz, CA, and I wrote seven poems in the four and a half days I was there. It was a very yeasty and inspiring time.

Lastly, I journal – every day. Nothing, no nothing, will get in the way of that – even while I was at the poetry workshop. It’s my healing work, and it also helps kick off other writing projects or poem ideas. I love talking to the page. And besides it never talks back.

 

 

Tell us about your writing projects. There must be a lot of great ones out there.
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