in progress

I have started a thing-a-day project, wherein I write a tetractys poem every day. I have monthly themes, which I selected in a suitably arcane fashion*, and I expect to do this all year. I started in March, so it hasn't been going on long. I am finding that it's good for me to pace myself like this. Today I wanted to write more, but I am saving all those ideas for later. Leaving myself wanting more, I hope, will help me sustain my enthusiasm. Simultaneously satisfying and belaying the instant gratification urge is fun too. I'm not going to be done until next year, but I still have little "yay, I'm done!" moments every day, since each poem is its own complete thought.

March's theme is "House." It's already taken me to stranger places than I expected.

What am I don't with these poems? I don't know. When I'm done it might be fun to sort them thematically or mix them up in a suitably arcane fashion and do some collages inspired by the results of that. I keep kicking around the idea of posting them online, maybe on Twitter since it's hard to break the 140 character barrier when you're only working with twenty syllables. I'm still leery of posting that much writing online. I should flip a coin or something.

Other writing projects, less complicated in execution, are puttering along. Two approaching first draft status (working titles "ghost cat" and "eye thing"--did I mention how awesome I am with titles?), one second draft ("Hair Wife"), and a few scattered "I don't know what these are, so let's play with them and see what happens" things. (More prose. It still feels weird to think of myself as being a poet these days. What makes a person a poet? Who decides?) I have many more ideas than I could ever complete. Gaz with have the dubious honor of inheriting many strange scraps of paper one day.

* I took out my Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (best book in the world), rolled 3D10 to determine page number**, then used a variation on the roll to find a word on the page, skipping "a" and "the." Closest noun or verb wins.

** Yes, that's 1D10 for each digit. I did that because of the number of pages in the book, feeling that percentile dice just wouldn't get me as much variety, or potential variety, as I wanted.***

*** I realize how nerdy and Rube Goldbergian this is.****

**** It was still fun.