Rick has been laughing himself silly reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Dive Into Mark has a wonderful rant about seeing puncutation in a whole new light after reading the book.

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My submissions tracker got rather crufty and I spent a couple of hours spiffing it up to make it easier for me to see what was out, what needed to get sent out (or revised), and what needed work. In other words, a ToDo list of sorts. When I’m done with it all, the next step is to incorporate some of it into my blog.

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My printers have always had names.

The big Lexmark Optra M412 (my only laser printer) is lexx.

The smaller Lexmark X83 all-in-one is luthor.

The huge HP-9300 tabloid printer is brutus.

I have to admit that I am sorely tempted to call my Canon i80 pachelbel. It’s such a small printer, it seems too long a name. Yet nothing else has quite spoken.

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I have wanted a portable printer since before I went to Clarion. Never have bought one, though. There’s really only three models: The Canon i70 (discontinued), the Canon i80 (the current model), and the HP 450ci, which is 65% larger. So, really, there’s only one real choice, isn’t there? Some day.

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I’ve been wanting to submit something to the CSS Zen Garden for some time now. I just came up with a spiff series of ideas. Go, me!

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July 1:

Two short stories revised and out the door.
All citations and references in place for writing the paper (this is
mostly done).
Doodle on outline for current novel.
XSL-FO template written for IEEE paper. That may not sound like a
writing goal, but it is. 🙂

July 15:

Academic paper written, revised, and out the door.
I’ll have no fiction quota during this time.

August 1:

Full outline for current novel.
Conceptual outline for next novel.

August 15:

Chapters 1-3 revised for current novel (to current outline).
More chapters written. 🙂

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1. Every poet is an experimentalist.
2. Learning to write is a simple process: read something, then write something; read something else, then write something else. And show in your writing what you have read.
3. There is no one way to write and no right way to write.
4. The good stuff and the bad stuff are all part of the stuff. No good stuff without bad stuff.
5. Learn the rules, break the rules, make up new rules, break the new rules.
6. You do not learn from work like yours as much as you learn from work unlike yours.
7. Originality is a new amalgam of influences.
8. Try to write poems at least one person in the room will hate.
9. The I in the poem is not you but someone who knows a lot about you.
10. Autobiography rots.
11. A poem listens to itself as it goes.
12. It’s not what one begins with that matters; it’s the quality of attention paid to it thereafter.
13. Language is subjective and relative, but it also overlaps; get on with it.
14. Every free verse writer must reinvent free verse.
15. Prose is prose because of what it includes; poetry is poetry because of what it leaves out.
16. A short poem need not be small.
17. Rhyme and meter, too, can be experimental.
18. Poetry has content but is not strictly about its contents. A poem containing a tree may not be about a tree.
19. You need nothing more to write poems than bits of string and thread and some dust from under the bed.
20. At heart, poetic beauty is tautological: it defines its terms and exhausts them.
21. The penalty for education is self-consciousness. But it is too late for ignorance.
22. What they say “there are no words for”–that’s what poetry is for. Poetry uses words to go beyond words.
23. One does not learn by having a teacher do the work.
24. The dictionary is beautiful; for some poets, it’s enough.
25. Writing poetry is its own reward and needs no certification. Poetry, like water, seeks its own level.
26. A finished poem is also the draft of a later poem.
27. A poet sees the differences between his or her poems but a reader sees the similarities.
28. Poetry is a manifestation of more important things. On the one hand, it’s poetry! On the other, it’s just poetry.
29. Viewed in perspective, Parnassus is a very short mountain.
30. A good workshop continually signals that we are all in this together, teacher too.
31. This Depression Era jingle could be about writing poetry: Use it up / wear it out / make it do / or do without.
32. Art is a way of life, not a career.

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I still think I’m missing that which seemed blaringly obvious the other night, but, well, it’s 2659 words and that’s as long as it’s going to be for a while.

I’d just rather not have a Doh! moment about it after I send the mss. off.

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Trying to finish chapter 3, but I can’t for the life of me remember what the logic flaw was. Feh.

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Went out to Denny’s to get a writing spell done and got Chapter 3 up to 2015 words. I realized that in the prior sketch (I can’t even really call it a draft), this chapter had a logic hole so large that I could have flown an aircraft carrier through it. Given, of course, that aircraft carriers could fly. 🙂

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