I’ve been a long time quiet. I’ve been either writing or carpentering. My writing is spent out in the fields, in the cabin I built for my daughter. She’s off in Canada now. I’ve found that getting out of the house and working in the cabin really does help me focus. I wouldn’t have expected that. Don’t know why. Guess I’ve always needed a writer’s cabin.
The last time I posted I was writing 888 words a day. About a month ago I was two thirds of the way through the novel, North of Autumn, and decided there was complexity I didn’t want to force my way through. I wanted to slow down, do some rewriting, editing, and revising—such that the earlier portions would agree with the new direction I was taking. Carpentry also picked up considerably and I’m not the kind who likes to carpenter all day, then come home and sequester myself writing.
So, as it is, I’m very close to finishing my second novel. I’m still sending out my first novel, but no agents are responding. I only have another 10,000 words and I’ll have met my 80,000 word goal. This last week, though, I’ve wanted the poetry to catch up with the prose (poems I’m writing for the novel). As a reminder, the main character’s deceased mother left behind a sketchbook in which she wrote poems in the manner of Emily Dickinson, hence the title: Hymn #3 (the third poem in the sketchbook). Dickinson’s poems were all written in Hymn Meter.
I've seen the threadbare eyes of women Their longing turned to doubt. They pass me by like shrouds, these women, Who've looked too deeply out. I've watched the speechless men go by; Their loose and tattered frames. I've watched—beyond repair—these men With their forgotten names. If nothing else then know that some, Depending where they dwell, Would trade all heaven's angels singing For just one kiss in hell.
This poems was inspired, in tone, by two other poems that end in ‘hell’. Emily Dickinson’s Parting and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129. I mean and hope to write again soon.
PoemShape 