Good-bye Poetry Journal

Today, I have to retire one of the two poetry journals or notebooks or workbooks- whatever you want to call it. I have this weird thing where I write poetry on paper with pen. Not that I don't write poetry on the computer because I do just that is not the norm. This sweet little notebook has no lines and is spiral bound and cost me two bucks at Wally-World.

The no lines are important and hard to find. Unless of course, I want to shell out a bunch of money for a sketchbook. I bought this notebook two years ago and there are three empty pages and it is time for retirement. Yeah that is another weird thing, I never completely finish a notebook. I always leave a few pages because I always like to make sure the same poem is in the same notebook. In the time I had this I have written poems for a National Poetry Month challenge, two poetry classes, various poems because I wanted to write a poem, notes on chapbook creation, poems for my Halloween book

My handwriting is pretty bad. It is a mixture of cursive and print. I swear the older I get, the worse it becomes. I kid you not, I even have a hard time reading what I wrote. These pages here are the first draft. There are some pages with arrows, scribbles and  words in the margin.

When I was younger, I wrote poems on whatever was handy- napkins, paper plates, scraps of  paper, margins in school notebooks. Over the years, many of those are long gone. I think I may have one in a shoe box but that is probably degrading over time.

Sometimes, when I am looking for something else, I come across one of these old journals. I find myself rereading it. Then BOOM, I lost an hour or two.  But rereading those old notebooks, I learn something. I learn about how much my writing has improved over the years. I can visibly see the progression.

Anyway, should I ever become famous, these will be valuable to some scholar writing their dissertation and looking for insight. That is if they can read my handwriting.

Before signing off, I just want to share with you that I have gathered all the stories for my upcoming short story collection Sanctioned Shadows. I am going to start final revisions tonight. Once they are done, I will decide the order and begin preparing the book for publication. I am shooting for February or March of this year.

Till next time...