Monthly Archives: April 2008

NaPoWriMo Final Day

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Hope everyone had a good Poetry Month.  My poem today was just about the process itself and it ended up being a rhyming poem.  Just for fun. 

Prepping my house for the invasion of the little people this weekend (as if the sister who is bringing them and myself aren’t little people as well).  Need to get out and buy groceries and do all the other things in the world that we need to do, but it is so much easier to daydream via internet–playing vacations, playing futures, pulling apart poems and hoping they will gel at some point.

Here we are over the hump. And here’s to tomorrow when I start reading and/or typing up the NaPoems.  Oh, will that be as scary as the poems I am compiling for my potential thesis/manuscript? Oh the horror.

NaPoWriMo Day 29

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Almost done.  Still haven’t gone back and looked at the bulk of my work for the month, but today’s poem was about Fire Ants.  Yep.  They got me today while I was weeding the tiny little flower beds I made in the front yard.  I have some hives but I have cleaned the up, medicated them and medicated myself with some extra anti-histamine. Lovely.

Finished 1 of 2 craft papers for May residency.  Almost done with most of the books.  Sent out another copy of one of my chapbooks to a contest and sent in my final distance workshop for this term.  Pretty full day but still haven’t really done a great deal of cleaning.  But, maybe I can blame that on meeting my hubby for lunch and brining home his copy of GTA 4? Excuses. Excuses.

The ants would choose to bite me, btw, on my right hand-writing hand all along my thumb and wrist.  They are saying, “Get to it!”

NaPoWriMo Starting to Wind Down

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Just another quickie little poem today for my NaPoWriMo work and only two more days to go.  I don’t know how many poems I’ll get out of this month, but I still think the exercise is worthwhile.  I was thinking today, that before I knew about NaPoWriMo, I essentially did it back in 2006.  Just not the whole month.  My husband, brother-in-law and I went to Japan back in April of 2006 and I had started writing again just before the trip and continued almost daily writing, just to get used to it again, after the trip and really up until the first of this year I was still doing it (run on sentence run on).  NaPoWriMo secretly knew about me I think!

The rain is flooding in and out today.  It was pouring so I got a lot of work inside done as I get ready for company this weekend, but then it stopped when I had to take the kitten to the vet but decided to start again as I was walking out the door of the vet.  Poor wet kitty.

Now it has stopped again.  Should I chance it and go out for my mall walk?  Why am I even questioning it? I know I will go because I like to keep checking on my special order at Borders.  I had to order another copy of “Modern Life” by Matthea Harvey because it is AMAZING and my kitten peed on my copy :(

On another side note, I already reserved a room for AWP.  I desperately want to go this year and I am even considering booking a flight really early on before the prices go up.  So my question is? How early is too early to book the flight do you think? I usually have a 6 month rule.

A Confession

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I went for 16 days (which may be a record) without screwing up on my simple new eating/exercise plan and then there was Saturday.

I even planned but still screwed up.  Such happens when you are trying to overcome years of bad habits and ingrained bad behavoir.  Had reasonable breakfast and lunch, but then ate a few two many peanuts while hanging out before dinner which meant, I wasn’t hungry for dinner but fell into that old habit of feeling I had to clean my plate, especially since we were out with other people. Argh to myself!

The scale reflected my mistake this morning, but I’m not going to let this derail me as I have let similiar situations do so in the past.  I’m back on track and looking forward to a new healthy day!

So just had to get that out there.  I know for some people they probably don’t want to read about it but I’d like for people to understand the world of the “Fat Girl” (title of one of my chapbooks that is floating around now) isn’t what you always think.  You see that Fat Girl over there in the corner (she is usually in the corner) don’t assume she got that way simply by eating too many cookies!

Anyway, off my soapbox and onto the floor to do my daily exercises.

And of course my NaPoem yesterday was about that frustration! Guess if “Fat Girl” is turned down by the contests, publishers I have it out to I can add another poem :)

Quickie Post

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Just got back from the Small Press Festival at UNCG and I had a great time listening to readings and purchasing-of course-more books and journals, but I was a little disappointed by the attendance at the festival.  From what I could see it was very sparsely attended.  I know this is only the 2nd year but for a school w/ a well-known MFA program as well as an English Phd program, you would have thought there would have been more students in attendance and certainly more faculty!

I did see Lee Zacharias and Fred Chappell (retired) poked his head in to a few readings.  That was really nice to see.  I listened to some awesome poets and short fiction writers from small presses who I will definitely have to post more about when I get a chance to read through their books.  It is really a great little festival and if you are going to be in Greensboro tomorrow you really should check it out, or hey if you catch this tonight you might be able to squeeze in part of the key note speech that starts at 7.  I wanted to stay for that but I also needed to get back home. Choices, choices.

I’ve further toned my car tan, however :)

NaPoWriMo of course written for the day in between readings.  All about how much I miss Greensboro. :(

NaPoWriMo at 4am

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I should know better than to contemplate ideas before I go to bed.  But, I don’t know better. 

In the back of my mind lately I’ve been thinking about my thesis/manuscript even though I’ve promised myself I’ll focus on my final full MFA residency etc and only start on the t/m in June.

One of the things that has been stalking me is what the title will be.  I’m in love with the idea of one particular title, but what if the work itself don’t really meld to that?  The title in question–I will call it TRH–is also a title of a poem that I have written many times.  I keep trying to write a poem under this title, but each time the poem turns out to be something else.  Until early this morning, I think.

I usually wake up once, if not several times, during the night.  This time it was 4am and I was really awake and the TRH title was floating around in my mind, but then I had an idea of how I could actually possibly structure it without it going off into being another topic.  So, I got up and wrote the first draft of the poem.  Probably should have just stayed up because it was well after 5:30 before I went back to sleep.

Oh well, gives me a few extra moments today to work on other things since I plan on being in Greensboro tomorrow for the previously mentioned Southeastern Literary Magazine and Small Press Festival.  I plan to get there early but not sure how long I’ll stay.  Depends on who I end up chatting with and how much is actually going on.

I’ll be the one with the very girlie backpack–but hey it holds a lot of stuff!

Oh and here is the vest alogn with some other pictures I was playing around with :) Have a good laugh!

Today’s Poem Brought to You by the Letter Girl…

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For Girl :)

When I was working on my closet reorg I found my old Girl Scout Vest.  I think I might actually try to take some pictures of it for fun.  I don’t even remember what all the badges are for, but I do know I don’t have them all as I was too busy my Senior year to go to the final awards ceremony.

Today’s NaPoem was about that vest.  It isn’t much of a poem right now but I like the idea behind it and it is finally getting me back on track of my initial idea of trying to do 30 poems roughly about textile topics.

I am mailing off one of my two chapbooks today “Fat Girl” to another contest.  It has been turned down by 1 contest and is out to about 5 now I think.  Hoping to finish reading through my other chapbook tomorrow so I can get it sent out as well.  More revisions today, even on one of the two papers I have to write before the May 25th start date of my final full MFA residency.  Can’t believe I’ll be graduating in January!

And for a bit of girl honesty–I passed a milestone today.  I’ve mentioned my weight problems but I’ll be up front with how bad it was.  At its worst I got up to 220 pounds.  Bu I finally saw 199 on the scale today.  First time in 2 years.  Yep, I’m totally admitting my weight on the internet.  The short little chunky poet will hopefully continue to shrink while her poems begin to rise.

See you on the other side of the hump!