Rough Draft and a Decision

Working on an idea that I got a while back, when I went drinking with Justin.

Today, I think I decided that I’m going to get serious again about writing. I’ve been meaning to review the poems I wrote for my thesis while studying at OSU, and they’ve just been sitting dormant for about 2 years now. Since Matt and I have started exchanging poems… I’ve been slowly getting myself ready to do this shit for real. The past few months of trading things back and forth has been a good warm up, some good knuckle cracking, and the seeds for several strong poems.

I still have that Poets Market book I purchased, which I have yet to crack open. Holy shit, has it been since August! Argh!

It’s time to go through things, to target publications and send these poems out into the world. This is going to mean that I’ll be obsessed with the mail for the next year, and that the mailman is gonna make or break my day.

I don’t mean for this to sound cocky, but I’m going to have a book of poems published. It’s going to happen. There are few things that I will say I am good at, out loud. I rarely claim such a thing around other people. But for me, I believe that I am a good writer, that I am a strong writer. I believe in my abilities, but to be more accurate… I believe in my poems.

If you’ve read any part of this blog, or have talked to me in person… you’ll recognize the streak of self-deprecation that frequently occurs. I tend to undercut my abilities, partly as a joke and partly as a defense mechanism. So it is a pretty big thing for me to come out and say that I think of myself as a good writer.

I may end up at Filter a bit more. Instead of coming home after work, I may be slipping in for some coffee and devoting some time, each day, to going over my manuscript. For the past two years, I got a bit lost in my job, with Flash, with the wonders of online communities. Two years is a long enough time to let poems sleep.

Time to get back to work.