Birds, weeds, bugs and the creative process

A peek inside my creating brain...

Notes on invasive species--

• House Sparrows
• Spotted Cuckoo
• Brown-headed Cowbird
• Yellow Warblers
• Milfoil
• Giant Hogweed
• Kudzu
• Africanized Bees

Key phrases: 

• brutal when discovered or tricked
• brood parasite
• home-breaker
• need to be physically ripped out
• easily triggered

I'm not done; but it feels like I should start drafting some things. I am hoping to pull from scientific assessments, and work with received/borrowed language. I think I need a couple more bugs, maybe termites. 

But not today. Today and tomorrow, I will be working on two older "flat" drafts in a high-energy, welcoming class online. I'm excited. Not only is it productive, it'll also be fun. I have not had an acceptance of a poem in a while, and I have not been writing a lot lately, either. I do have a couple of drafts from the generative workshop I was in last month, but I have not gone back to them to see what is really there. See, that's the kicker: when I draft something, either I love it too much to tweak it right away, or I dislike it so much that I ignore it. Snub it entirely. Very rarely is there a draft that calls me back to it and that I want to play with it and see what it says right away. Those are fun ones. 

I've never really written a very long poem. I don't mean epic-length, but a poem that goes on for more than a page and a half. Even those few are really unusual; I tend to drop in, say something, then exit quickly (I love sonnets). That said, I've felt a strange pull to work on something of length for a while. I had a planned project on my desk for about a year now, one that focused on water. As in, everything from tears to drinking water to floods. Yeah... that one is languishing. I don't have the mental space to do the research right now, and it's not something I can just whip out of my brain. 

So this odd little invasive species thing is knocking at the back door, and I have invited it in to have a cup of coffee. I have a vacation week coming (yay), and so far, there are two things on my agenda: getting my rear brakes replaced (ugh, expensive), and shifting beds/bedrooms upstairs. Both will take up some actual time, but will not take up any real mental time, so I may be able to slide into creative mode. 

In the meantime, though, I've been playing along with my creative writing students on occasion. I wrote a fairly respectable bop, and there are a couple of other things, not "keepers," per se, but that have helped me blow some dust off the mental mechanics. They are a fun little trio of students, and they embrace each challenge, prompt, and exemplar poem with gusto. What a good way to end each teaching day!

At any rate, I'm here, I'm sort of writing, and I'm trying not to allow myself to get sucked into the national chaos. It isn't easy; it's infiltrating every single aspect of my waking life. I can't put up barriers fast enough to stem the onslaught of horror, and I need a break. This weekend's writing retreat will, if nothing else (and I know it'll be more), will give me a different emotional and mental space to live in. 

I can't wait.

C