Poems and Piccadilly

So National Poetry Month is over. I didn't complete the Poem-A-Day Challenge, but I did write some poetry and I had some fun doing it. I made a plan for a chant-style poem that mocks both major political parties in the US and tentatively subtitled it "The Death Threat Poem", because it's an equal-opportunity offender (I don't get involved in politics: I shun them). I wrote a cinquain about a lawn tool (prompt #8). I wrote a hopeless poem (prompt #27). And I wrote a handful of other poems that didn't fit the prompts.

I did these in my Piccadilly lined notebook, which I grabbed at Borders for about $5. That I bought a Piccadilly and not a Moleskine is not entirely noteworthy; I've been meaning to try Piccadilly books for a while now. That I bought a lined notebook is noteworthy. I've long been a staunch "unlined only" journaller. But the lines are perfect for poetry and other list-like things. I did my Time Finder in that journal, and made lists of things I had to get done in it as well. My one complaint is the poor quality of the cover. I bought a softcover journal, and it's made of basically cardboard with a faux oilskin sheet pasted to it. It started to split when I tried to tuck my steel pen's clip into it. I can bend the cover back and fold it under, but after doing this a couple dozen times, the black fabric pulls away from the spine, revealing the glued-in bookmark. The bookmark stays put, thankfully, but with the fabric bulged out like that it's not the most attractive book. The bulging makes it a bit harder to handle, too.

All in all, though, the Piccadilly journal is a good buy. The quality in certain places is far outshined by Moleskine, but you can get about three Piccadillys for the price of one Moleskine. I'm less touchy about this notebook getting jammed into my bag and maybe slightly abused (by accident, I assure you) because it is less expensive.

My regular journal, which I've been neglecting for a while, mostly because I do my brain-dumps into my Morning Pages notebook these days, is a plain softcover Moleskine, and is nearly finished. When I reach the end of that book, I have a plain Miquelrius to start. I'm already using a gridded Miquelrius for my role-playing notes, and I like the quality and feel of it. They're a little more expensive than Piccadilly, but they have more pages. A mid-range option, I would say.

Piccadilly and Moleskine are available at most major booksellers such as Borders and Barnes and Noble. So far the only place I can clearly recall seeing Miquelrius is at Dick Blick. Got a journalling preference? Are you picky about your journals or do you grab just any old book and get to work?

Distractions!

I've been quite prone to falling into distractions so far this week. I dialed up WRTI on the print server computer this morning so I could keep the laptop offline, in order to keep from gettting sucked into the Internet instead of writing. I went away to prepare a cup of tea. When I returned I realised my screen saver was boring. I then proceeded to spend half an hour looking at screen savers on my system, finally stopping when one of the image slideshows locked up KDE. Eheheh. So much for the Internet as my only distraction!

When I'm this plagued by monkey mind, it's hard to get anything accomplished. Couple that with the extra fatigue brought on by Extreme Sinus Action! and I'm anything but productive. I'd meditate if I thought I could keep from dozing off in the middle of it.

A chat this weekend with friends about Jim Butcher's latest Harry Dresden novel touched off a discussion on what makes a compelling story. I'll be exploring that later this week. Jim Butcher has a blog over at LiveJournal in which he gives advice for writers. I'll probably be referencing that as well. It's no longer updated, it appears, but it's still chock-a-block full of good stuff.

Let's catch up on the Poem-A-Day Challenge. Today is April 12 13th, and so far I have six poems completed, with two ideas for others. None of them follow the prompts on the website. Le sigh. The enthusiasm I had last week, during the summer weather preview we got in these parts, has faded, replaced by sinus congestion. Not a good trade, I feel. Yet I soldier on, albeit slowly and armed with tissues. The sneezing is getting old, now. Honestly, it can quit any time now. I'm serious.

In a not-really-related note, I'm supposed to be working on the next phase of an adventure I started running a few weeks ago for the roleplaying game Cat. Anything can be an adventure, yes, even a trip to the vet! Anyone who's ever tried to round up even one cat for a veterinarian trip knows what sort of searching, cajoling, screeching, dragging, shoving, clawing and biting catastrophe (heh) that can be. I have five players, soon to be six, and only three humans to deal with them. I wonder if they ought to phone a friend or relative for moral support at the vet's office when the crated kitties get loose. Or buy a tranq gun. Catnip works well enough on at least one of the members of the kitty crew, who was all too happy to ride in the crate once he had his precious catnip mousie. Just say no, kids.

So that's another creative direction I'm finding myself pulled in. It's only Tuesday but I've yet to sit my butt down for fiction writing, or article writing so far. But I'll keep plodding along, tossing bits of (I hope) interesting stuff for you folks to read. Stay tuned!

Poem A Day and ... Chaos

I've decided to take on the Poem A Day challenge issued by Robert Lee Brewer on the Writer's Digest blog site. I decided this yesterday, so I'm a bit behind. Yet I wrote two complete poems yesterday and have started on three others, so perhaps not so far behind. April is National Poetry Month, and what better way to celebrate it than to write a stack of poetry?

The more I focus on writing poetry the more I begin to notice it in everything I do. The breeze blowing in through the window; the way my cat begs for my tea, then backs up, licking her nose in protest to the sharp smell of the packet when I offer it to her; even the accident last night wherein the driver of a U-HAUL failed to take into account the height of his truck and got wedged under the railroad bridge near my house: there's poetry in all of it. It's given me a feeling of brevity of language again. And of course my Handbook of Poetic Forms is getting a lot of use. It's the most useful book I ever bought for a college class. Thanks, Professor Nestler!

I've also begun to be curious about flash fiction: stories written in 1000 words or less. It's the next step up from poetry, in my estimation, and it could be as good for me as the poetry challenge seems to be.

One of the quick forms of poetry I'm going to be doing this month is the lune. It's a variant of haiku, adapted for English, which uses fewer syllables than does Japanese, according to poet Robert Kelly, who devised the form in the 1960s.

Last night I spent some time working in "Wreck This Journal", a book given me by a dear online friend. The idea of the book is to basically destroy it, via the instructions within. Creative instructions. Weird instructions. Crazy instructions. Things like "take the journal in the shower with you" and "tie a string to the journal and take it for a walk". The very idea of destroying a book is sacrilege to me, but this book's purpose is to be creatively damaged. I wanted it because I thought it would be a good exercise for me. It's really fun to work with. In fact, the first lune of the month was written about this experience:

finding my chaos
Wreck This Journal
I'm a kid again

(...though now that I look closer at this, written last night, I realise I've done 5/4/5 syllables, not the 5/3/5 I was supposed to have done. I blame Wreck This Journal for influencing me with its rule-breaking ideas!)

Take a look at some of the user images on the Amazon site. They're awesome. Working with this book is really quite freeing, in a periodically cringe-inducing way. Once I fill it up a bit I'll do some of the more destructive prompts. Don't know how I'll feel walking down the street with a book on a makeshift leash, bumping and dragging along behind me, but it sounds like fun! If someone asks me what I'm doing, I'll show them the journal. "I'm just following the directions," I'll say.