A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Two

I have had a rather atrocious day on several different levels.  For one thing, I attended an event this afternoon that seemed promising, as it was supposed to be a lecture on Florida's literature, however, it turned out to be nothing of the sort.  The event consisted of two speakers, the first of whom spoke nothing at all about literature, aside from mentioning a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe which he then proceeded to, by his own acknowledgement, discuss in a way that was completely unrelated to the meaning and intent of the passage.  He literally stated that this was the case, and the rest of his talk was a discussion of art using his purposefully distorted misreading as some sort of thesis.  The attempt to shoehorn literature into the talk was so bad that it was offensive.

The second speaker also seemed more interested in discussing visual art, though he did mention the names of various writers who have lived in Florida or written about it.  Of course, he didn't quote a single line of any of their books, so I don't know how one can pretend the event was, in any way, a discussion of literature.  I don't want to out the specific institution, honestly, but this is not the first time that they have had events that have treated the literary arts so haphazardly.  It often feels that they will pay lip service to the idea of literature, but without any genuine desire to engage with such work.

The evening was not much better, as we attempted to go to dinner at a local restaurant, and had a horrid experience where they could not honor the reservation and refused to even apologize for that failure.  After that, we got something at another place, but my meal there was so disgusting that I didn't do more than have a bite of it.   So, now I am rather irritated and very hungry and I don't thing I am going to get anything to eat for dinner at all.

Anyhow, I shouldn't be so annoyed about all of this, and I am attempting to be more in control.  I am hoping that getting it out here will help me to keep my calm to some extent.

I did write a new poem that I am rather happy with, and I feel pretty good about work on the poem I was revising.  I'm going to send that out to Freesia, I think, and see what she has to say about it.  I'm feeling that I am in a very good place with the poetry, at least, and I am optimistic that the work I am doing is publishable and will find an audience.  If I can make that happen, then, I think that will give me a lot more of a chance to get my other work out there as well.

I also  think that getting myself  going and developing my publishing credentials and career as a poet will give me a different perspective, and might help to free me from some of my own negative thinking.  I might be silly to think that, but I do believe it might help liberate me to do the kind of creative work that I believe I am truly capable of, and to get me working at a level and pace that I am not yet achieving.  That is probably just a pipe-dream, but it is, at least, something to aim for.

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