Prompt Response: What to Look Forward To.

I was reading last year's summer issue of Bella Grace today, and it had a prompt to write down what you can look forward to over the next week. I decided to write it for this week and next week. I'm trying to remind myself that tasks are something to look forward to as well. Of course, every day, I look forward to that first morning soda.

Friday

• Seeing Bruce and watching Sex Education or American Horror Story if I'm up for it (here's hoping I'll feel well tomorrow)
• Reading ENG 002 students' improved drafts
• Waternelon for breakfast
• Morning snuggles with Josh until 8:30
• Resting until 9:30.
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Starting Best American Poetry 2023
• Typing up new poems
• Reading student journals
• New ink from my Diamine Inkvent calendar! I'm starting it early because I probably won't open a new ink each day. It just arrived today!
• Starting to look at student social sciences studies
• Getting caught up on some training

Saturday

• Reading Mandy for tutoring
• Discussing Mandy and teaching Jacob new words
• Maybe sleeping in?
• Watermelon for breakfast
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Reading student journals
• An empty work inbox
• Wearing my star tank top for the first time
• Sitting with Josh in the study
• New Diamine Inkvent ink
• Finishing What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours: Stories
• Starting Toni Morrison's The Source of Self-Regard

Sunday

• Maybe sleeping in?
• Wearing holiday Twinkle T-shirt
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Iced peppermint mocha!
• Sitting with Josh in the study
• Reading student studies
• New ink!
• Two hours of rest time while the boys go to the trampoline park

Monday

• Morning snuggles until 8:00
• Yoga
• Reading literature for class
• Reading student literary anaylses
• Sending out new week announcements
• Catching up on classes
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Reading student journals
• Reading Mandy for tutoring
• Discussing Mandy and teaching Jacob new words

Tuesday

• Quiet morning with Oliver out of school
• Morning time in the study with Josh
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Reading student journals
• New ink!
• Finishing Ink Blood Sister Scribe
• Starting to listen to Circe
• McD Dr. Pepper

Wednesday

• A Dr. Pepper at the grocery store
• New groceries!
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Catching up on classes
• An empty work inbox
• Wearing green velvet Mary Janes
• New ink!

Thursday

• Watermelon for breakfast
• A whole day with Josh, including lots of snuggle time
• Maybe sleeping in?
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Reading student journals
• Maybe a date to Barnes?
• Maybe an iced peppermint mocha?
• Maybe a new magazine? Poets & Writers?

Friday

• Watermelon for breakfast
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Maybe sleeping in?
• Quiet morning with Oliver out of school
• Sitting with Josh in the study in the morning
• The Addam's Family musical with Bruce at Cape Fear Regional Theatre!

Saturday

• Watermelon for breakfast
• Reading Mandy for tutoring
• Spending the morning with Josh in the study
• Maybe sleeping in?
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Funny Girl with Bruce at DPAC!
• Peanut M&Ms
• Big bottle of Dr. Pepper
• Finishing The Source of Self-Regard

Sunday

• Maybe sleeping in?
• Morning in the study with Josh
• Morning pages
• Bella Grace article in the morning
• Finishing The Plague
• Starting Like Life: Stories by Lorrie Moore
• Starting Death of a Bookseller
• Iced peppermint mocha!
• Two hours of rest while the boys go to the trampoline park
• Hopefully making up a tutoring session

Now, I just have to make sure I actually do all this!

October Poetry Month: Week Two.

Day 1: I finally read The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon. I just love her. I've read all but one (maybe?) of her other books of poetry. I started reading her work (and she became a favorite) before she became US Poet Laureate. I discovered her in Raleigh last year at a tiny bookstore, starting with Sharks in the Rivers. The Hurting Kind is my favorite of her books, five stars! Two five-star poetry books so far this month? Awesome. I'd like to reread all of her books at once, maybe in April. I hope she'll publish many new books in quick succession now that she's so famous. Interestingly enough, she also teaches in Queens MFA program! All these connections. I told Josh that I didn't know if I could respond to Love & F*ck Poems, but he told me to take it as a challenge. So I wrote "Introduction," a poem about my first sexual experiences (spoiler: they weren't positive). It's not nearly as graphic as some of Dimitriadis's poems, but I think I captured some of her desperation. The poem also made me recognize a latent belief that had been fogging up the back of my mind and finally spilled into conscious thought. That's something to work on and perhaps something to explore further in poetry...or at least in my journal. I stayed up quite late reading The Hurting Kind. I read several poems aloud to Josh as he fell asleep, and I finished the book in the bathtub. When I couldn't get to sleep, I wrote another poem, this one called "Jar of Scorpions," after Limon's poem of the same name. 

Day 2: This day was a bust. I was intensely exhausted, partly from staying up too late reading and partly from an emotional onslaught. I think the beginnings of a mood episode or a fight with this respiratory infection going around may be contributed as well. I decided I'd have to be more careful about sleep. So, I didn't read a book of poetry or write a poem on this day, but I'm still going to catch up! Since I wrote two poems the day before, I'm not behind on writing, and I've already responded to the last book I read.

Day 3: My book of the day was Light at the Seam by Joseph Bathanti, another of my former professors. It's largely a book rural mountain environment poems. Bathanti captures place and demographics so well in all his writing that I've read. I'm not sure how I'll respond. But I did write a poem called "When You're Exhausted." This poem came from what I did today, tired as I was, and some advice people gave me through a Facebook post about physical and existential exhaustion. In another connection, Jessie gave me the last line of the poem. 

Day 4: I read Molly Peacock's The Analyst, a sort of love letter to her former psychoanalyst. Could I write a poem to my therapist or psychiatrist? Maybe. To catch up, I also read The Death of a Migrant Worker, a chapbook from Rattle. I don't know if I'll be able to respond to all these books, but I'll try. I didn't write a poem today, so I'm behind on that, but at least I'm caught up on reading. 

Day 5: My book of the day was Daniel Halpern's Something Shining. I didn't love it, and I don't know if I have a response to it, but I marked some lines I liked. I didn't write anything today, so I'm more behind. I hope to catch up this weekend as Oliver will be in Charlotte. 

Day 6: I wrote a poem called "October" based on texts Josh and I exchanged this morning. I read half of This Clumsy Living by Bob Hicok but didn't finish it. It was getting late, and I'm afraid of messing myself up again if I don't get enough sleep. I have new ideas for poems, though.

Day 7: I wrote two poems after Bob Hicok: "Ruth's Reply" and "This Is the Complete Shape of the World, an Inventory, a Map," which takes its title from one of Hicok's lines. I like to write a prompt for a poem in my journal (sometimes a title, sometimes first or last lines) at night and respond to them the next day. I finished Bob Hicok's This Clumsy Living. Hicok taught at Queens; I was in his large workshop once. I'm now only behind by one poem and one book of poetry. I've completed thirteen of each!

Writing Conference Prompts: Desired Outcomes.

 Desired Outcomes as a Reader

• Read 100 books this year
• Fill time with reading
• Read 31 books of poetry in October
• Read visually 2+ hours daily
• Read poems every day
• Read a story every day
• Read art
• Listen to books at every opportunity
• Read within my passions and curiosities
• Read outside my tendencies
• Read with Josh
• Read with Bruce
• Read some of Josh's books
• Read anthologies, especially Best American
• Approach books with curiosity

What am I doing well?

• The desire is there.
• I read deeply.
• I reflect on what I read.
• I read to help myself write.

What could I do better?

• Focus
• Put in the time
• Read widely
• Read daily
• Listen to books more

How can I do better?

• Keep headphones charged
• Listen during chores and meals
• Read The Plague
• Read a chapter of Creative Recovery each week
• Read poetry collections all at once in a day or two
• Finish a book most days
• Time my reading
• Use chart
• Update GoodReads and StoryGraph

Writing Conference Prompt: When I Am at My Best.

When I am at my best, I am

Industrious

• hard working
• steady
• focused 
• diligent

Studious

• curious
• searching
• note taking
• absorbing
• applying

Kind

• patient
• gentle
• encouraging
• loving
• empathic and empathetic

Creative

• present
• brave
• determined
• open
• passionate
• prolific
• visionary
• eager
• in wonder

Relaxed

• not tense
• satisfied
• content
• proud
• not anxious
• not guilty
• peaceful
• playful
• funny

Voracious

• exploring
• reading widely
• reading daily
• reading deeply

Integrated

• consistent
• honest
• authentic
• stable
• available
• engaged

Writing Conference Prompts: Roles, Rights, and Responsibilities

One of the speakers told us to write down our primary roles and the rights and responsibilties of each role. 

Role: Writer

Rights: to take time, to express, to receive encouragement from my close readers

Responsibilities: to make time, to be brave and diligent, to write it, to read and fill the well

Role: Wife

Rights: support, touch, romance, passion, security and safety, adoration

Responsibilities: support, cleaning/chores, planning, fidelity, openness, words of affirmation, touch, company, gentleness and patience

Role: Teacher

Rights: a measure of authority, recognition of my knowledge, pay

Responsibilities: helping others fear writing less, building vocabularies, explaining grammar, holding students to high standards, grading work, answering E-mails

Role: Mother

Rights: Seeing Oliver’s smile, snuggling occasionally, seeing what love made, memories

Responsibilities: patience, attention, cheerfulness, managing interruptions, cooperation with others, appointments, admin work, support

Role: Reader

Rights: indulging my imagination, experiencing, feeling

Responsibilities: staying curious, putting in the time, studying, reading widely and daily and deeply