Would That I Might

I have been doing interviews the last few days.  They are all written format, with me replying to the questions on the page, but it is interesting.  I am probably lucky that I am getting the chance to do them in this format at the moment, as I don't really have a great deal of experience with being interviewed, let alone with a recording or something of that sort.  It is rather exciting to be doing this stuff, largely because of the exposure I think it will bring for my book.  I know that this is an important opportunity for me, and I am eager to make the most of it.

I do not want to celebrate right now but I think it is going well, those things are going well, but so much is wrong and cannot be ignored, cannot be separate. It is no good to say things are going well, not now, not when this is the world right now.

Focusing on the presale and the upcoming release for Blaze without Burning , my chapbook, has had me a bit distracted and a part of me isn't always in the mood to get my writing done, if I am honest.  It is largely that I am doing a great deal of other work, some of which includes different types of writing, and a lot of the time it is stuff that requires a good deal of energy and concentration.  I am glad to do it, really, and I am actually enjoying myself, if I am honest, it just wears me down a bit at times, I suppose.  I am, as I said last night, quite hopeful that it will be worth putting in the effort and it will pay off for me in the end.

It is not about them or anybody else or you, even It is me, I guess, and that is  all I can think to say about it, which is not an apology, but it should be and I want  it to be, I just can't get myself to say more, to tell enough that it will mean anything more. Maybe I can get to that place one day, but not right now. For now, I can only be sorry and hope it means something.

I am feeling very excited about things with my chapbook presale right now.  At the moment, it is still just starting out, but I have had a few interview requests from some magazines, as well as some other interest from other media outlets, mostly online.  Some of these are outlets with a decent reach, so I am hopeful that it might lead to some decent sales.  Of course, it is worth keeping in mind that when I say that I am thinking in terms of sales for a poetry book, so the bar is pretty low.

I am hungry tonight I had dinner, and it was good and should be enough and I am not going to give in to the desire, or don't want to, anyhow, don't plan on giving  in, but I am hungry right now. It is not a bad thing, I have to tell myself. It is not terrible being a bit hungry, should not be, anyhow.  I ate enough, maybe too much, even. That hunger is lying or misguided. I should know not to pay attention when it speaks.

Melissa and I had the annual community meeting for our neighborhood tonight.  It was nice to get together with our neighbors, though there was a bit of drama, as there almost always is.  The management company that the HOA uses has been doing a really terrible job lately, and so that was a large part of the discussion.  In the end, nothing much really happened or was resolved, but I think that the folks from the management company are kind of aware that they are in trouble right now, although I am not certain what is going to be done in the end and whether or not it will actually make a positive difference.  

You are only telling me what I know and I am glad about it all but it is not a help in this moment.  It is just a frustration, really, to hear those plans, and to hear how hard it is to make it better. The way it is is bad now and must change in the moment and not later, not one day that might possibly be soon. You know, you understand, right now tomorrow is the same as never,

It is the first full day with my book available for pre-order and I am still just starting to get the word out, but I am hopeful.  I already have a few bits of press lined up, which I believe will make a big difference, and I am planning to keep pushing to promote it, especially during this initially period before it is actually printed.  Pre-sales make a huge difference in the publishing industry, so now is really the time when I need to be promoting the book.  I do feel a bit awkward about that, but I find that a bit strange, perhaps even suspect, since this is work that I am quite proud of and have poured a great deal of effort into, and it has taken me a lot to get to this point.  It shouldn't feel strange or uncomfortable to me to share that with people.

I should prepare I know that I should, and I do intend to, even though I have waited this long, and I really should be ready, should have done all of it already, days  ago, before this.  And I won't do it now, I will wait, again, wait until it is even later, but I will get it done, in the end, when I feel the deadline turning to fire.

The preorder link for my book is now live on the publisher's website.  I am very excited to be able to share it here.  This is my first solo collection, and while the book is on the shorter side, I am quite proud of it  It's the first time that I was able to bring my poem's together in a way that made the manuscript a whole and wasn't simply an assemblage of individual poems.  If you are interested, please consider ordering a copy from this link on the publisher's website .

I know it is necessary and I know I could and should and I want to, or think I want to, until I get scared and then I get lost or flustered, or maybe it is a disorientation? I lose something, or get taken from it and cannot find the way back, and so I do something else instead.

Melissa is working at the festival for the local Greek Church this weekend.  She did the same last year, and the community there is quite welcoming, even to an outsider like myself.  I am getting ready to head over and pick her up in a few minutes.  The festival itself is a rather large and involved event, and we have been going for quite a few years.  We've actually gone to festivals at quite a few Greek churches over the years, and most are somewhat similar, with food and other vendors.  One thing that does make the festival at St. Mark's, the local church, is that they actually make all the food themselves.  We generally have a pretty good time when we go, and I know it is something that is special to Melissa.

Sleeping better would be nice, but I do not know if it can be achieved for me, not right now, and maybe  never, maybe. At least I have a bit more time not being asleep; maybe that is a good consolation, maybe.

The presale for Blaze without Burning , my chapbook, starts in just a few days, and I am getting pretty excited.  I've been putting in a lot of work to try and get ready, not just in terms of working on the manuscript and various materials that the publisher requested, but also in attempting to get the word out about it.  I feel like I am having a decent amount of luck with that, though it is hard to say until things really get going.  This is my first solo collection and an important opportunity for me.  I am hopeful that making this book a success will open up the door to more in the future.

I can hear it all but I am not listening, am not paying attention to what is being said, am not processing the words.  It is just tone and voice, nothing more. I have learned to let it slip past. That is the best that can be done right now.

I am feeling quite exhausted right now.  I don't mean just in terms of being physically tired, though that is certainly something I deal with quite a bit, but in a larger sense.  I would imagine that many people are feeling worn down right now, with everything that has been going on in the world lately.

Someone mentions an old restaurant and I think of the time my father took us there, the whole family, for lunch.  It was nothing we had planned, just a thing we did one day, for no real reason besides doing it, besides my father saying, "let's go." I think of it and I try to remember  more details, not just going there but the details, and nothing seems clear except the feeling of it, the atmosphere of the moment and the thought that I miss my father.

It has been another rather long day.  This morning, I attended a funeral with Melissa and my mother.  The service was pleasant, but we had a bit of drama trying to get there, as the information we received sent us to the funeral home, but the service was being held at the cemetery, which was all the way on the other side of town (actually, on the other side in a different town, to be precise), and there was quite a bit of morning traffic.  Fortunately, we made it in time and were able to pay our respects.  The funeral was for a family friend, Trudy, who was 99 when she passed, so it was not all that unexpected, but she was a very special person and I know that she was one of the people who really welcomed Melissa when she first moved down here.  

It was happening but I didn't think it was what I wanted it to be, but it was something and this is less, and I can try to return to what was, can try to find it once more, but it is harder, now, and less certain and I am sure there are things I would  already have learned.

I am glad to find that I am finishing up my work relatively early, though it would have been better if I had gotten myself into gear even before this.  Yesterday, of course, I did do my work in the earlier part of the evening, and I think that was a positive choice, but I didn't succeed at repeating that choice today.  Fortunately, I did get myself to work before it got all that, afterall.

It is nothing we did not know or expect but that does not help, really, not even a bit.  It is  better, maybe, to be prepared, to be aware of what is coming, except it can't change it, so how is that any better, anyway?

I pushed myself to try and disrupt my usual writing routine by getting my work done a bit earlier in the evening.  For one thing, as I have expressed, I've been pretty tired recently, but I also do think that it is probably good if I can shake things up a little bit in ways that don't disrupt my output.  I am hoping that, perhaps, if I can develop a pattern of getting my writing done earlier, I might find that having built this routine of writing at night, I will still, at least some of the time, feel like writing in the evening, and perhaps I can push myself, in those instances, to do other sorts of writing than my usual routine of poetry.

I had hope when it began and until it all went wrong, until the point when it had happened, but until then, I was thinking it might be good, might be a good day, happy and pleasant, and I wanted that. I did want that. If only I had been more careful, maybe then it would have been.

The question of what kind of topics I might choose, if I am considering the way I might shift my efforts on this blog in a way that was more structured, shall we say, is one that I find a bit hard to pin down.  I think, perhaps, it would be good if I could find a way to use it to discuss writing more directly, perhaps, but I am not certain just what that would look like.  It might be that I will try some kind of dissection of a specific poem, though I find that I often feel a bit clumsy trying to write such things, but I could certainly imagine developing some format for such an effort that I might find rewarding and which might provide some sort of guidance, at least some of the time, for writing this blog.  I suppose that the next time I am really at a loss about what I want to do with an entry, I should try writing something of this sort.

I do not trust that this is best It is, I can tell you, not what I planned or how I had imagined things would be and I cannot say I am glad or that it is good or right, but what should I do? I am saying nothing, even if I think there is a better way. I am always afraid in these moments.

There is a part of me that worries that writing my blog each day is a bit of a mistake, in that I tend not to really have a great deal to say, and often just rush to get something down, if I am honest.  And all that is something I consider, but I also know that the real truth is this blog is more a thing I do for myself than anything else.  I started this blog as a part of an effort to keep myself on track when I began keeping a daily writing practice, and having a public commitment to write kept me honest, despite the reality that no one was all that attentive to what I was doing here.  The idea of it as public was enough, and that has always been a very large part of my reason for writing this blog each night.  I do think that I might do better if I were to pick genuine topics to write about, rather than just writing anything that might come to mind, though I do wonder if there isn't value in both approaches.

I feel it too and I worry, as you do, about the days that will come and what will matter and if I will miss what is gone once it is too late.

I am quite glad to have been able to get myself to do my work early tonight, as I am still feeling rather tired.  It's been a long day, though I spent most of it around the house, to be honest.  This is probably the first quiet day that I've had this week, so perhaps it is understandable that I am still feeling some level of exhaustion at the moment.

I do not have good answers for your questions They are not things I ever considered before we met, though I should have. I realize it was never much different than this but it was how things had always been. Now, I have  your perspective, too.

So, I woke up early this morning under the belief that I had an appointment at half-past eight, but I was wrong.  It was not until one in the afternoon.  I actually have the eight-thirty appointment tomorrow morning, which is not a problem, really, but I am quite tired at this point, as I did get out of bed a bit after six today.  Seeing as I intend to do the same tomorrow, I am planning to get to bed quite soon.

I like it, though it is strange I should not have used, "though," because I do not mean strange in any way that contradicts my liking it, because it being strange is not a bad thing or a good one, either, is not meant to determine the value, but is a value it presents, a quaIity, right, and that is not me saying anything about what is good or bad but just that it is not the expected  or typical or ordinary or other things that mean the same general thing. I like it being strange, I think, or I like it and it is strange, which may be a bit different, but if I can't tell which is right I don't know that it matters much.

I am feeling quite tired at the moment, and it has been a somewhat long and busy day.  I am glad to be wrapping up with my writing for tonight so that I can try and get myself to sleep a bit early, especially as I am supposed to be at the gym at 8:30 for a training session.

I made him mad and it is not wrong for him to feel that, to think what he thinks, to be offended by what happened or did not happen or what that means, what I communicated by my failure.  I do not have a good excuse and am not offering any. It was not intended, but that means little, I suppose.  I hope he can understand and forgive.

Melissa was still not feeling so great when she got up this morning but I think she is doing better tonight.  I am hoping she will be back to normal tomorrow.  Really, it isn't all that clear just what was wrong, as she didn't have a fever.  Fortunately, she seems to be getting better.  I suspect it may have been largely stress related, as we have been dealing with a number of complicated matters recently.

I hear it all but I am not paying attention to anything but the noise as a noise, am not understanding or interpreting or considering it as anything  that might have a meaning or matter. It is just a noise. I can ignore a noise.

Melissa has been feeling ill since Friday night.  We went out to dinner with my mother and after, Melissa began having an upset stomach.  She spent all day in bed yesterday and most of today, as well, but she says she is starting to feel better and thinks she will be alright tomorrow.  

No concern or care was shown and that is how they think it should be, is right and proper and fine and not a thing anyone would question, because if they did, the only response would be confusion or concern for the one asking, as if such a thought were the true sign of the addled, and the best synonym for wisdom was obliviousness.

In discussing the difficulties I have been encountering getting myself to return to writing more fiction, I also need to acknowledge the role of routine.  I began a daily writing practice around eight or nine years ago, and it always focused on writing poetry.  While I have written fiction as a part of this practice, at times, it has rarely been something that I did with the same regularity as I have with poetry.  Certainly, my confidence as a poet connects to this, though that connection runs in both directions: I believed in my competence to write poetry when I began this practice, and that certainly made it far easier to begin, and writing poetry each day has helped me to develop as a poet, and has provided me a greater feeling of mastery over my practical ability to produce poetry, putting aside the specific merits of any particular poem.  By contrast, I am not as certain in my fiction writing, and that has made it far more challenging to create a truly sustainab...

I did not think of all of that They are good questions, are the right things to be considering and I wonder why I wouldn't think of it myself, but I know you are often the wiser one, and I trust or just want or act, like stepping on ice before checking it is too thin.

I have fallen out of the habit of writing fiction with any regularity and I know that I want to change that.  If I didn't have a desire to write stories, it would be fine, but I often think of stories I would like to write, it is simply that I don't do it, and I think part of that, at least, is that I don't trust myself to do it.  I feel competent with my poetry, but I know that I don't have the same degree of experience about fiction, and I am aware that much of what I want to write is complicated and a bit strange.  In some ways, my lack of more formal training might be a boon, to be honest, as I tend to want to write more experimental and nonconventional pieces, but the fact that I am not so confident in my ability to craft compelling stories does make sitting down to write fiction far more difficult for me than writing poetry.

I should not but then I do and I regret it, and then I think I won't forget how it feels when I falter, but later I seem to find out once more: desire is not always so easy to dissuade.

It was another busy day, today, and, beyond just being a bit tired, I am also feeling somewhat sore right now.  In large part it is my arm, which has been aching on and off for a little while.  I don't know if is from strain or just having banged it or something else, but it has been improving and I expect it will go away soon enough.  In any event, I am hoping that I might be able to get to bed on the early side tonight.

You speak of it being fair and seem to think it has been and is and only needs to remain that way, and I wonder how you can think it is not a lie. You have observed and been part of too much for that, have been here to observe it all, alas, it seems you have noticed  only what you were told was there.

It has been a long and somewhat overwhelming day.  I was kind of prepared that it might be, but expecting it doesn't mean it wasn't still a lot to deal with.  At the moment, I am still kind of recovering and trying not to think about things too much, at least for a bit.

I had too much and less is better for tonight, anyhow. I couldn't handle more, could not make use of it. Another time, but not now, not tonight, what with the world and the moon and my heart.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.  Melissa and I both have appointments in the morning, and then we both have appointments in the afternoon, including a meeting we are supposed to attend together to do with the work on our house (a meeting I will admit stresses me out a bit at the moment).  It is going to be a bit hectic, so it is probably for the best that I am getting my work done early and can rest up the rest of the evening.

I do not know or maybe I do know and I cannot remember or I did know, is maybe more accurate, but I do not know if I did or not, and I can't say that if I knew I knew everything or just some of it or all of it or if what I knew was even the truth or just lies or half-lies or, maybe, enough that was true to be misleading. Or, maybe that is just what I am telling myself. It is all quite confusing, really, and I am not sure I even want to get it clear.

It is only a few weeks before pre-orders begin for my chapbook, and I am quite excited about it.  While it is only a chapbook, I believe I can use it as an opportunity for developing my audience and creating a bigger platform.  I feel as if there are already positive signs about what is to come, and I am focusing on those and keeping myself optimistic about it all.

It was me who made the error, but I won't tell you that, won't make it known. I am embarrassed, am ashamed of it and of my annoyance at the repercussions when I assumed it was someone else.

One of the difficulties of keeping this blog is knowing what I want to write each night. Just a few minutes ago I didn't even really have a good idea of just what I would write, so I am writing this, about that difficulty itself.  Most nights I do come up with something, one way or another, so I can't say just what it is that is happening quite yet.

I almost forgot or I did forget, for a bit, anyway, but then I remembered when it mattered, which is why I say that I almost forgot, because I did remember, because I remembered  just in time, when it mattered. I might not have, but I did. I know it was close. I can't even say  how it is I wound up remembering at the right moment.

I believe that one area where I find that I can have difficulty with fiction is my tendency to be so oriented on language first that I can easily slip towards indulging that urge in ways that don't necessarily work to forward a story.  This is likely just a case of my just being slightly askew in some sense, or just not having a particular approach that would let me harness this tendency in a more fruitful way.  I often feel that I am quite close to being able to really write the fiction I have in mind, and I am sure the real answer will be just to write it, of course, but, of course, that is mainly because it gives me the real opportunity to learn just what it is I am trying to figure out in the first place.

I recognize what has happened and what I  have done and have not done and why it is my actions that are what matters, even if  there is more and it is not  only me, even then, because you are the one I owe it to, the one who deserves to be considered and the rest:  I do not know what to say about that. Maybe I should. If I were better at any of it, maybe I could manage all that, too.

I am feeling a bit sore at the moment.  I've been working out a bit more than I had been in the past, and maybe that is some of it, though I am careful and have a trainer who knows what he is doing.  For the most part, I think it is just normal stuff, to be honest, though I do have a bit of soreness in my one arm that feels a little more vigorous, shall we say, than would be expected.  I am going to the doctor on Monday for a regular visit, so if it is still bothering me at that point, I can bring it up.

Resolutions Even if I know that things are wrong and what things and that I am responsible, and even wanting to make the changes, wanting to solve and resolve and move towards better times and better ways, even all that does not seem to make it any simpler.

I feel kind of bad that I didn't get my work done last night, but I know it happens.  Ironically, it wasn't because Melissa and I were out celebrating or anything.  We spent the night at home together. I made a nice meal for us, but I think we were both just exhausted after a long day.  I do feel a bit old confessing that I think we both fell asleep before midnight.

You won't understand that there are problems and they are real and have impact on my life, and some are practical problems and some are about what is meant or communicated, and some are not that, either, but they are  problems, all of them, and I know it won't matter that they are real to me, it won't matter because it is not about your concerns or how it impacts them.