Dog sitting for my son this weekend. It’s become a mini writing retreat of sorts. I’ve stayed off TV – so I’ve not had that distraction. Also worked on some “office work” and in-between took our sick car to the shop for which the issue remains unresolved.
In terms of writing, I’ve done some on my laptop and some in my journal. It helped to brake up things to give my eyes a change of focus. By late last night my eyes were pretty fuzzy and my head spinning. I did ultimately unwind listening to some music from Yusef Islam a.k.a. Cat Stevens. Some of his music is especially comforting like the denim jeans he sings of in Oh Very Young.
One of the neat things about writing this weekend is that I started with an epigraph from Anne Sexton and was able to write for a while and hit a wall. I stopped for a while and read some of her work just to get my mind to move beyond where I was. Later I was able to go back and successfully write more. Not from the original draft but with a new slant from the epigraph. Again I hit a wall, but I have parts of the two different drafts that have portions that show promise and will at some point I am confident prove useful. Then later this morning – another whole draft – this one the process has reached conclusion. It’s very workable and I already know some changes I will make; tighten it up and work on line breaks and toy with the stanzas trying to get the best flow from it and improve it lyrically. This one has a broadly political / philosophical tone and these are so hard to do without preaching. This will not be preachy.
That is my roundup for the weekend. I’m going to stop now and write a bit longer and head to bed. Morning comes soon.
