We write to taste life twice

"Like stones, words are laborious and unforgiving,
and the fitting of them together, like the fitting of
stones, demands great patience and strength
of purpose and particular skill." ~ Edmund Morrison

This pretty much describes the week I'm having with my writing. It's been very tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating for me. It's taking me at least twice as long to write each article than it normally does. I haven't had much patience this week, but I just have to kind of grit my teeth and work through it. Eventually, I have a finished piece.

And yeah, metaphorically, it feels like I'm building a wall. Or hitting my head against one. Take your pick. :)

For lo, I have received a badge of honor for itinerantwriter, or to be more specific The Itinerant Writer...because it's the actual blog and not the syndicated site that received it.


And the my blog entry is posted to their site here, although it links back to my blog anyway. Ruba has gotten a significant following, so this is a pretty nice plug for my blog. I'm stoked!

Just finished work for the day...for one job. I still have to write up some content for the real estate website - another neighborhood review. Will probably work on that tonight when Lance is studying.

And I have to take Reece on another very long walk today. Lance has to commit to 2+ hours of study a night since he finally wants to get his degree over and done with, so I'm now committed to getting Reece out of the house as much as possible. Good for both of us. As long as I have some music with me, I can stay out for a long time. I only started listening to music last night as I walked her...I can't seem to stay interested in the walk for as long without it. And it keeps me from having to stop and let the neighborhood kids pet Reece. She gets mobbed nearly every time we go out, and if I have ear phones on, they ignore me. Which is probably for the best, since Reece gets overly excited if anyone pays her any attention.

Last night, I was writing in my paper journal. It's the journal I've been keeping throughout my time here in Germany. I want to finish it before we leave (and if I'm consistent about writing in it, I could very well do that).

Anyway, Lance asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I was journaling.

"Oh, you're writing all that stuff that you can't say on Live Journal." (That's not exactly what he said, but it was something along those lines.)

"Not really. And I write EVERYTHING with the knowledge that someone might read it someday. Even my personal paper journal."

Lance: "Wow. That's big headed."

Me: "No. I don't mean it in the sense that I'm going to die as a super famous person and everyone will be interested in publishing my diaries. I mean it in the sense that if I die before you, you very well might read my journals after I'm gone."

Lance: "I would never do that. You're entitled to your privacy. It would be difficult for me to restrain myself, though."

Anyway, he doesn't even read my Live Journal anymore. I doubt he would read my paper journals. And some of the stuff I write is just stupid, angsty crap anyway...I don't think there's anything terribly profound about my thoughts. And I doubt anyone can read it. My handwriting has gotten pretty sloppy over the years, especially when my carpal tunnel flares up. When I first start writing, it's usually pretty legible, but then it gets worse as I keep going.

***

So I've noticed lately that I'm starting to look for poetry again. I used to write a lot of poetry, until I was in a Creative Writing class in college and my poetry instructor told me that my poetry was crap. I stopped writing it mostly, except to come up with the occasional poem in memory of a family member who passed away or something. I was becoming quite known in my family for memorializing people in verse.

I also stopped reading poetry, for the most part. But I've started getting an interest in it again.

Anyone have suggestions for poets I should be reading right now? I have an anthology of 20th century women poets, so I have somewhere to start.

This could mean that I will eventually start dabbling in verse again. I have random lines that could eventually become poems. But nothing else right now.

***

Totally not writing related, but I just had an amazing breakfast. I had some leftover fried apples from the other day, and I warmed those up in the microwave for a minute. I mixed it with vanilla yogurt and granola. It tasted almost like apple crisp a la mode. Yummy yum.

Off to spinning class here shortly.