A Writer's Notebook, Day Eight-Hundred-And--Thirty-Seven

I had a very productive conversation with Freesia McKee this morning in which we began to focus on ideas for the manuscript I have been discussing.  I feel quite fortunate to have a person I trust to work with on this project, and it is particularly helpful at this stage, since I am wanting to discuss these ideas, but don't want to do so in a way that is not focused towards the goal itself.  It can be tempting to just talk about a project of this sort, and that can feel like a natural way to organize the ideas, but it can be a trap, as the impulse to create the work is often driven by the desire to communicate the core idea.  In talking with a person who is external to the project, that energy can be dissipated, but because I have a collaborator, I can discuss these ideas in a way that is constructive and builds that energy.  That I trust Freesia and am excited for her contributions to the project are of even greater value, and I feel that our conversation today was incredibly helpful in clarifying our direction.  Right now, I think the goal is to collect a core group of poems that can be used to build the central structure of the book.  In some ways, the process is one of discovering what the book is, as we grow it from the poems I have already written.  Today, we were able to think about what that core is, and what we want to unite those poems.  I feel that I am getting a stronger sense of what this book wants to be, but more importantly, I am finding a pathway towards that outcome.

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