Dusty must filtered with green.
…lapping for warm air, gliding over the crushed figure of a discarded surgical glove.
The draft as he spoke, scalded and cheap.
Just some of the lines I’m working with as I continue to work my way through 100 days.
My goal when I started, or more accurately when we first discussed the 100 days project, was to spend this one hundred days writing every day so that I would have a finished book of poetry by day one hundred. Twenty-five days in and I have come to the realization that I will not have a book at the end of one hundred days and I might not even have a single poem.
And that’s a good thing.
What?!? It’s true. As I delve more into the process, I am beginning to really explore the process, which I believe is the point of this. I might spend all day on one line. One line. Or an image that will become a line. I am starting to understand how beautiful it is to wallow in the actual creation of what will someday evolve into a finished piece of work.
I feel the financial pressure (we all do!) to write, write, write to produce in the hopes of receiving some sort of compensation, either for validation or rent or both. I have forgotten the enjoyment of actually being a writer to write – to pursue with wonder and curiosity. To explore a character intimately (yes, poets have protagonists, too).
I saw a headline about Elizabeth Gilbert and I clicked on it; just a story about her tour with Oprah, however, one passage really struck me. “Here’s what I’m going to tell you about your fear: It’s the most boring thing about you,” Gilbert says. “The most interesting thing about you is your creativity, your passion, your love, your joy, your faith — all that stuff is fascinating.”
I have lived in fear for a long time and it is boring. I’m rather enjoying living in wonder instead.
And you never know…maybe I will have a book on day one hundred…
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Laura Clifton is a guest blogger for BookHive Corp.
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