Well, I did that thing to my latest manuscript last night – that thing where you print out all the poems, lay them out on the floor, and try to decide how they fit together, abandoning previous plans and careful sorting, trying to see if you need one or two or six sections, seeing if there’s actually an arc to the groupings. I re-did the manuscript this morning (put in four new poems, took out two or three old ones, and moved almost every poem around) and sent it out into the world in its new form.
I also ignored my teaching work for a bit (it seems to suck up all my time for some reason, and I feel guilty for not constantly checking in!) and applied for a fellowship and for California Poets in the Schools. I’m thinking it would be fun to work with high school students again. I worked on a new poem, sent out a packet, you know, all that stuff that seems to get away from you if you let it. It was nice to spend some time doing creative work, and even the relative drudgery of looking up Excel spreadsheets, figuring out which poem to send where seemed fun to me, so I must not be doing enough of it!

It’s November and the night is coming in so fast these days – it was cloudy and it seemed by 5 PM it was completely dark. The moon that was so bright and clear a couple of days ago has disappeared. The trees are shedding their leaves. Grrrrggh. I’m not ready for winter! Not ready I say! Hope that Napa’s winter will be kind to us.