I didn’t mean to be having a pity party, and I’m sorry I came across that way, but I have been feeling like I’m sort of at a blah place in my writing, and it’s not just about that one crappy poem that was getting me down.  And it’s not even been about lack of success with the chapbooks or poems being rejected. Unfortunately, I do feel like I’m not growing as a poet, at least, not lately.

Though, I came across a folder of “juvenalia” writing, from about 1993 to 2000, that was hilariously bad.  When I was younger, I loved to learn obscure words–I poured over dictionaries to find new words that I would then populate my poems with.  This is not the best way to write, by any stretch of the imagination–because one or two might be ok in a poem, but when there are 10 crazy words (or more) in there, you wind up with a completely unclear vocabulary lesson.  Boring!   With a few exceptions, everything in that folder is dreadful.  

And, in comparison, the writing I do now is so much better.  But I want to like what I’m writing, and lately I’m just not.  So if I’m sounding like I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself, I apologize.  I feel like I need a “reboot.”  

I wish I could go to another writer’s conference.  I need some of that momentum and energy–CVWC was only 3 weeks ago, but it seems much longer than that.